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THE RELIGION OF A DEMOCRAT 



THE RELIGION OF A 
DEMOCRAT 



BY 



CHARLES ZUEBLIN 

Author of ** A Decade of Civic Development," *' American 
Municipal Progress," etc. 



1908 

B. W. HUEBSCH 
NEW YORK 



Copyright 1908 by 
B. W. HUEBSCH 






|UtJriARY of (K)hit!7v33 
Ywo Copies rtwk.i. _.. 

APR 13 ^908 



Printed in U. S. A. 



TO MY FRIEND^ 

r^ DR. STANTON COIT 

\;i WHO DIVERTED ME FROM DEAD LANGUAGES 

^ TO LIVING ISSUES 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Temperament and Personality . 11 

II, The Constraint of Orthodoxy . 41 

III. The Decay of Authority . . 67 

IV. Religion and the Church . . 101 
V. Religion and the State . . . 131 

VI. Impersonal Immortality . . . 159 



TEMPERAMENT AND 
PERSONALITY 



[9] 



CHAPTER I 

TEMPERAMENT AND PERSONALITY 

THE great paradox of modern thought is 
its limitless scope and the insignificance 
of the thinker. The more the human 
mind explores infinity, the firmer becomes the 
conviction of the incomprehensibility of its 
vastness. The more science reveals of the hu- 
man personality, the more does even its ex- 
panding power demonstrate the insight of the 
query, "What is man that thou art mindful of 
him?" The thoughtful mind inevitably spec- 
ulates on infinity, but generally in wild 
stretches of the imagination, made seemingly 
intelligible by some petty human concept. 
The logical method of progression through 
the universal, which is within human compre- 
hension, to the infinite, is uncommon. 

After all, what do we know of infinity? 

[11] 



TJie Religion of a Democrat 

Science has partially revealed the universe, but 
what is beyond that? The very thought of 
what may be outside of human knowledge is 
overwhelming. This little solar system of ours 
is but one of a multitude. The almost count- 
less miles between us and the sun are as noth- 
ing compared with the distance to the farth- 
est star we can see, but beyond the uttermost 
limits of which we can have any adequate con- 
ception, there is still space, and beyond space, 
perhaps infinity! This infinite space has been 
for infinite time and will be. The more we 
know, the more unintelligible it seems to be- 
come. For with our previous anthropomor- 
phic methods of expressing God and his uni- 
verse, our little human consciousness accepted 
in the naivest possible way things too great 
for human reason. So we are thrown back 
upon the belief that these subjects are not to 
be expressed rationally, but, as objects of 
faith, to be taken for granted. We cannot 
all do that, and those who cannot have been 
placed in the incongruous position of reason- 
ing more about the infinite and fathoming it 

[12] 



Temperament and Personality 

less. The compensation is founds perhaps, in 
the hypothesis that the search for the infinite 
is as valuable to man as definite knowledge of 
it. 

Religion is the expression of man's rela- 
tion to the universal, ultimate, and infinite. 
However religions may differ, they are com- 
prehended in this relation, and whatever seeks 
this expression is religion. This conception 
may answer at once the demand for the great- 
est common religious denominator, and the 
criticism that religion will perish with theology. 
There appears to be no basis for the sanguine 
expectation of Voltaire or Ingersoll, or 
Guyau ^ that theology and superstition are to 
be blotted out. The assaults of sceptics and 
the constructive investigations of scientists 
leave most men unmoved. Whether it prove 
easier to cling to an old, irrational faith, or 
the new faith of science be unsatisfying, or 
one possess the contented scientific mind, 
a possible reconciliation lies in recognizing the 



1 " The Non-Religion of the Future.' 

[13] 



Tlie Religion of a Democrat 

common aspiration. There is a unity of pur- 
pose in crass superstition and refined research. 
The endeavor to express the relation to the 
universal, ultimate, and infinite, is more clearly 
seen by the scientific man, more vividly felt 
by the superstitious. The common life will 
be enriched if we can discover a basis for the 
unity of faith. 

The religion of an individual, this expres- 
sion of his relation to the universal, ultimate, 
and infinite, is the chief test of personality. 
There are many trivial ways in which person- 
ality reveals itself, and some strong characters 
may be indifferent to the deeper things of life, 
but it is when the personality faces the great 
crisis or shares the common life that the stat- 
ure of humanity is measured. The finer per- 
sonalities are those which try to attune them- 
selves to the universal, and these are found 
often in humble situations where the nearness 
of the common lot precludes the isolation of 
the privileged. Where the roots penetrate 
deepest there is least likelihood that the tree 
will wither at the top. There is no virtue in 

[14] 



Temperament and Personality 

exclusiveness ; the richest of human experiences 
come through sharing the common hf e. Man- 
ifestly, then, personahty grows as it ap- 
proaches some comprehension of its relation 
to the universe. 

Universality does not mean uniformity. 
Carlyle said that we were once all red, pulpy 
infants, which could be kneaded into any shape. 
The Declaration of Independence claimed that 
all men were created free and equal. We do 
not have to believe these doctrines, to demand 
that each personality shall enjoy its heritage. 
We may not be able to mould every child as 
we please, but we cannot therefore excuse our- 
selves for shaping them all alike. If their po- 
tentialities do not come to fruition, it is largely 
through disregard of that subtle, ineradicable 
element which determines personality, the ele- 
ment of temperament. Each person is a com- 
bination of qualities and capacities inherited 
from immediate or remote ancestors, and his 
native inclinations constitute his temperament. 
The development of his personality will be 
conditioned by the social environment, acting 

[15] 



TJie Religion of a Democrat 

upon his latent powers, and his choices will be 
largely governed by temperament. We have 
been misled by musicians and other artists into 
speaking of temperament as something pos- 
sessed only by a few. What is meant appar- 
ently is that some people have sensitive tem- 
peraments, which react more speedily and 
spontaneously than their intellects. 

When one considers that temperament is a 
universal possession, so little expressed in in- 
tellectual terms that it still baffles the psychol- 
ogists,^ that it varies with each individual, and 
in every case meets unusual influences from 
without, one understands the claim that each 
man must have his own religion. A race will 
possess on the whole similar temperamental 
qualities, and religions are therefore racial in 
outer form ; but in relating itself to the infinite 
and ultimate, each independent personality 
will have a faith of its own, for which it is not 
wholly responsible. This faith, conditioned 
by the common life, is expressed through per- 



1 Ribot, " Psychology of the Emotions.' 

[16] 



Temperament and Personality 

sonal temperament, which becomes, therefore, 
the first object of inquiry in considering demo- 
cratic rehgion. 

There are, for example, altruistic and ego- 
istic temperaments. The egoist may devote 
himself to others and serve them better than 
the altruist, but it is with an effort to overcome 
an obstacle unknown to the latter, A recent 
incident which has attracted renewed attention 
is his own revelation of his life by Carl Schurz. 
This great German- American was a patriot in 
the best sense, who gave unusual service to his 
native and adopted lands, partly motived by a 
supreme confidence in himself which brooked 
no discouragements, such as would have under- 
mined the efforts of a flabby altruist of the 
familiar, ecclesiastical type. 

There are also those who are temperamental- 
ly optimistic or pessimistic. The pessimist may 
overcome his fears and acquire hope. The 
optimist may see more of concrete evil about 
him than the pessimist. The latter is not nec- 
essarily lugubrious, nor the former fatuous, 
though a pessimist may be ''one who has been 

[17] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

compelled to live with an optimist." The su- 
perficial estimate of both has necessitated the 
invention of the term "meliorist." However, 
both optimist and pessimist may be working 
for the better, each hampered or aided by his 
temperamental peculiarity. It is not possible 
to predicate whether the optimist will be al- 
truistic, or the pessimist egoistic. The pre- 
sumptive alliance of temperamental differ- 
ences is not demonstrated by the psychologists. 
Our present state of knowledge seems to indi- 
cate infinite combinations of temperamental 
elements. 

Thus there are emotional and volatile na- 
tures, rational and phlegmatic ones. CHmatic 
and racial influences do much to determine 
these, but furnish no clue to any given indi- 
vidual, nor tell us anything of the likelihood of 
relationship to altruism, egoism, pessimism, or 
optimism. ISTeither are the distinctions always 
clearly defined. An unemotional people like 
the Americans will lose their heads, as south- 
ern Europeans are supposed to do, in the pres- 
ence of an inexplicable crime, like the Hay- 

[18] 



Temperament and Personality 

market riot in Chicago, or the assassination of 
McKinley. Then vengeance is demanded and 
scapegoats are sacrificed by a people who usu- 
ally are phlegmatic. It is the dominance for 
the time of the emotional or volatile tempera- 
ments, which are sure to be found in a mixed 
race, even in the North. The undemonstrative 
native American cannot understand a group 
of Italians or Greeks, not yet Americanized 
and devitalized — and washed, — who greet 
their newly-arrived, unprepossessing brethren 
with effusive kisses. 

If the forms which satisfy individuals be 
similar, at least the inner experiences will vary 
when genuine. The living environment alone 
is enough to make individuality complex. To 
this is added the inheritance of the ages, and 
one cannot say how remote may be some ata- 
vistic influence. Who knows but that the 
American child of the plain, who is possessed 
by an irresistible longing for the sea or the 
mountain, may be expressing the elemental 
forces of the age when his remote ancestry 
lived in Norway or Switzerland? A similar 

[19] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

recrudescence of emotions produces the reli- 
gious devotee or sceptic, in apparently unpro- 
pitious environment. One must expect the 
social and religious forms and experiences of 
different races and different individuals to be 
unlike. It is the acme of human life that 
there should be these possibilities of differen- 
tiation in us, and these variations ought to be 
magnified instead of minimized. 

Temperamental variation is not necessarily 
a question of superiority. In our days of 
subjection to nineteenth century thought, with 
its wonderful heritage of science, we have ex- 
aggerated the value of rationalism; we needed 
it. There was a time when we ran riot with 
our emotions, but we can easily have too much 
rationalism and too little sentiment. The rea- 
son for so much conformity is because tem- 
peramental differences are suppressed. The 
spontaneous expression of personality w^ould 
be a gain to society, and would make religion 
more real. 

Intellectual capacity has no logical relation 
to temperament, but is nevertheless condi- 

[20] 



Temperament and Personality 

tioned by it, so much so that the expression 
may often seem more temperamental than in- 
tellectual. There are people of limited and 
others of large intellectual capacity. We hear 
of savage races, able to count only to five, a 
fact as unintelligible to the average man as the 
versatility of Goethe or William Morris, or 
the precocity of John Stuart Mill. The in- 
tellectual faculties of men are of numberless 
gradations. We have no standard by which 
we can absolutely determine the relative in- 
tellectual importance of any one. In our 
schools we have boys and girls whom their 
teachers call stupid, who, put into another 
school with different methods, — perhaps man- 
ual training substituted for mathematics or 
languages, — become exceedingly apt. These 
countless gradations we do not discover by our 
ordinary regimentation of men. 

When we say of people that they are limited 
or large in their capacities, we have not said 
much. Large capacity is not merely quanti- 
tative; it is represented in originality and ver- 
satility, yet one can by drudgery accomplish 

[21] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

what the talented has not done. The quick- 
witted will not spend so much time over the 
lesson, yet the slow-witted can pass examina- 
tions by persistence and perseverance. Those 
of us who teach see it done, and perhaps re- 
member when we did it. In my own profes- 
sional course at Yale the best linguist in the 
class, the man who wrote the most nearly per- 
fect English, was an Armenian, who had been 
in this country for ten years. He had worked 
at our vernacular and accomplished more by 
diligence than we by all our natural advan- 
tages. Of course all these shades of intellect- 
ual differences are somehow or other coupled 
with multifarious shades of temperament, but 
we go on treating them all alike from the 
standpoint of religion. 

Then there are people who are particularly 
apt in the grasp of detail, and others who eas- 
ily generalize. The inherited influence of the 
wider industrial experience of men and the re- 
striction of the domestic activities of women 
lead us frequently to speak of these types of 
mind as masculine and feminine. The best 

[22] 



Temperament and Personality 

example in refutation of such a restriction is 
Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb/ since Mrs. Webb 
generalizes and Mr. Webb attends to details. 
One might say by conventional logic that she 
is masculine and he feminine; but this is a 
poor characterization because it does not take 
the individual into account. The distinction 
is not one of sex but of intellectual types. ^ 

There are also — which is perhaps most im- 
portant of all — dependent and independent 
minds. We do not begin to see how large a 
part this distinction plaj^s in the world of 
thought and activity. The dependent are 
naturally orthodox, and the independent nat- 
urally heterodox. The independent will not 
conform. If he cannot read into the creed his 
faith, he ceases to repeat the creed and fre- 
quently leaves the church. But there is a de- 
pendent type who in absolute conscientiousness 
reads his faith into the creeds. Such conform- 
ity appears in politics, in society, everywhere. 

There are those who think themselves eman- 



1 Joint authors of " Industrial Democrax^y," etc. 

[23] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

cipated, and still subscribe to political plat- 
forms as barren and meaningless as any creed 
ever written. The difference between the two 
is not that the dependent mind is not emanci- 
pated, but that when it moves it is only to 
become again a fixture. It must have a creed. 
It must be orthodox in something, if only in 
its scepticism. The scepticism of the depend- 
ent mind may be as orthodox as the faith of 
the unsophisticated child. The scepticism of 
every age is eventually determined by its or- 
thodoxy. On the other hand, independent 
minds may hold fast to many traditions, but 
the traditions belong to a faith which they have 
mastered for themselves. 

All these varied personalities, formed by the 
multitudinous and inextricable combinations 
of temperament and intellectual capacity, go 
the way of the world. It is the same way for 
all, but it looks different, so that the environ- 
ment is never quite the same. It is as though 
the opportunity for the development of per- 
sonality were the road to be traveled, and the 
incidents in the development the transporta- 

[24] 



Temperament and Personality 

tion facilities. The road may be wide or nar- 
row, rough or smooth, up or down; the inci- 
dents may be bridges over streams, short cuts 
through the woods, or a lift now and then in 
a variety of vehicles. We do not travel the 
same stretches simultaneously; we do not meet 
the same aids or difficulties under the same cir- 
cumstances, or with the same companions; we 
do not have the same experiences when we re- 
trace our steps, for we have grown, or others 
have altered the roadway, or the landmarks 
have disappeared. We go sometimes with the 
crowd and sometimes against it, but we never 
get our bearings until we have gone at times 
alone, and blazed our own path. In the re- 
ligious or moral life, unbounded reliance on 
parents, or friends, or guides, prevents orien- 
tation, and one should learn to travel by the 
heavenly bodies. 

Opportunity for the development of per- 
sonality is found in antecedents, age, lan- 
guage, family, race, church, occupation, soci- 
ety. The fundamental opportunity for every 
one is found in antecedents. It is the pre- 

[25] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

rogative of every child to be well-born, but 
every child is not. Rich and poor alike, they 
may carry to their graves the marks of a bad 
beginning. It is not impossible to overcome 
the handicap, but those who do may develop 
backbone at the expense of a weak heart, they 
may hold their heads high, but still limp. 

Perhaps I can best represent how opportu- 
nity affects temperament and general intel- 
lectual capacity if I describe briefly the career 
of a well-known man. He was bound over to 
a farmer at the age of eight, and stayed with 
him eight years. Therefore, at the age of 
sixteen he had spent half of his life as a farm 
laborer, and he had no knowledge of letters, — 
nothing, in fact, of w^hat we call education. 
But he had a mature mind, for one cannot be 
out in the fields all day without thinking; un- 
less, like the Maine farmer who, describing the 
occupations of the long winter evenings, said, 
"We just set, and think, and some of us just 
set!" When he was released from his inden- 
ture, he went to school and to college. He 
flew through the grades, and completed a col- 

[26] 



Temperament and Personality 

lege course in two years. He got enough 
money by teaching to keep him in the univer- 
sity until he had been granted his doctor's de- 
gree, became a professor, and was accounted 
an educated and cultivated man. Then he 
spent five years in Europe and returned a free 
lance. 

When I first saw him I heard him speak 
from the platform. He gave one of the most 
interesting lectures I have ever heard, but 
there was something queer about it. It was 
progressive and showed wide research, but 
there was something odd about it. Why did 
a man who knew his craft, and thought so in- 
dependently express himself in just that way? 
There was something about him not to be 
found in the typical cultured man lecturing. 
It was the result of the long years when he 
did not have opportunity. Such lack of op- 
portunity would have embittered many men, 
for although he had made for himself happy 
fortunes, he could never reclaim the losses of 
sixteen neglected years. Like every man his 
opportunities were limited by his antecedents, 

[27] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

The age at which opportunity comes has 
much to do with its value. In contrast with 
the instance just cited, one is reminded of the 
unnatural experience of John Stuart JNIill. 
He was a child of exceptional precocity, per- 
sonally trained by a pedantic, but learned 
father, who taught him prematurely all things 
except religion, which was totally omitted. 
Nothing but John Stuart Mill's religious tem- 
perament prevented his being a prig. Al- 
though he remained rationalistic to the end, 
his life was distinctly a religious one, but the 
half -suppressed wails of that hungry soul show 
the necessity of permitting children to be chil- 
dren, even to the point of letting them embrace 
superstitions. 

A child is a product, not only of parents, 
but of the race, and in accordance with its in- 
heritance of racial instincts, it almost invari- 
ably passes through a theological period, and 
should have the chance to get orthodox experi- 
ence. The spirit of the age was in the boy, 
reproached by his mother for not saying his 
prayers^ who replied, ''No, I didn't pray to- 

[28] 



Temperament and Personality 

night, and I didn't pray last night, and I ain't 
goin' to pray tomorrow night. Then if noth- 
in' happens, I ain't never goin' to pray again!" 
If the child is not forced into dogmatic knowl- 
edge beyond his immaturity, his companions 
or his observation will supply the needed ra- 
tionalism in a normal home. 

Language exercises a subtle influence over 
the spiritual life. In the language of the 
house and of the street it is wonderful how 
many theological terms are used, and although 
the use is predominantly irreligious, the vocab- 
ulary points to religious environment. The 
majority of those who use profanity are 
doubtless orthodox. A convinced, conscien- 
tious agnostic or atheist would hardly habit- 
ually take the name of God in vain, but it is 
done quite casually by the conventional believ- 
er. Any religion which we possess, or profess, 
came to us after we got our language, and the 
substance of it often is linguistic, rather than 
the product of experience. The influence of 
language is akin to that of family. It is early 
and immediate. We cannot always predicate 

[29] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

that the influence of a rehgious household will 
be religious, because temperament again must 
be considered; but where the spirit is religious, 
rather than merely pious or theological, the 
rarified atmosphere is likely to keep the spir- 
itual lungs sound. 

It is not possible or desirable to eliminate 
racial characteristics. They may be combined 
in the same family, in the production of con- 
trasting personalities, but they are predomi- 
nantly similar. Religion, culture, politics, — 
all are circumscribed by race. To the common 
life, however, there comes most encouragement 
in the experience of little Switzerland. Its 
twenty-six federated cantons include not only 
mountain and valley, pastoral, agricultural, 
and industrial influences; but three nationali- 
ties, Italian, French and German; three races. 
Romantic, Teutonic, Hebraic; three religions, 
Protestant, Catholic, Jewish; and five lan- 
guages, Italian, French, German, Romansch, 
and Yiddish, inextricably interwoven in the 
finest example of solidarity recorded in his- 

[30] 



Temperament and Personality 



tory. Democracy rises to heights as yet un* 
attained by race or religion. 

This is not without moment when we turn 
to society as affording or restricting opportu- 
nity for the development of personality. We 
must not underestimate its significance. There 
are standards of ethics and manners and human 
relations that fluctuate with every community, 
race and nation. They vary in different parts 
of one country, even our own country. There 
is more courtesy in some parts than in others^ 
more adherence to clan, more regard for so- 
called inferior races. But you can never pre- 
dict from what you chance to see in any place 
what is its highest standard of morals or con- 
ception of religion. The courtly gentleman 
may be a brute, more of a brute than the vul- 
gar or unconventional rustic. 

All sorts of elements go to make up each 
one of us, and even the people who are most 
emancipated intellectually recognize that it is 
not only practical, wise and courteous, but just, 
that we should avoid offending too much the 

[31] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

social sensibilities of our neighbors. There is 
no reason why we should flaunt our views in 
the faces of people to whom they are unpleas- 
ant. Yet, on the whole, we conform to the 
rules of society, not from any scrupulous de- 
sire to do honor and justice to our neighbor, 
but for the sake of convenience. It therefore 
leads to hypocrisy and affectation. Whether 
a man is orthodox or unorthodox, it is often 
social cowardice that prevents free expression, 
and this cowardice affects the rationalist as 
well as others. The other extreme is that of 
importunate manifestation on the part of the 
individual who thinks that thereby he demon- 
strates his puny grasp of truth. The people 
who get up in prayer meetings and shout 
"Amen" and ''Glory to God" are of this type, 
and also those who think that the world can 
only be saved by voting the party ticket. One 
cannot judge from the expression of it how 
radical a faith it is — it is the type of mind that 
is shown. 

The institutions and customs of society af- 
fect different personalities differently at dif- 

[32] 



Temperament and Personality 

f erent times, but the normal development fol- 
lows a chronological progression which is sim- 
ilar for all temperaments, securing differen- 
tiation through the temperamental variation. 
Incidents in this chronology may be the cru- 
cial physical experiences of puberty and ado- 
lescence, the susceptibility of school days, love 
and self -surrender and the maturing influences 
of books, travel, friends. 

In the periods of puberty and adolescence 
the mind begins to question the meaning of 
life, and to find the individual's place in the 
world, and that is the time when we are most 
likely to affect the character of the individual. 
If we do not have a proper respect for our 
children, in the period when their minds are 
impressionable, they will secure their training 
elsewhere, for it takes place at this time willy- 
nilly. It is important that this influence 
should be exercised in full cognizance of the 
problems of the coming century, and with due 
reference to the personal equation. 

If we are to preach a rational religion, it 
must be to people who are matured, but that 

[33] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

may be done better if the foundations have 
been laid during this impressionable period. 
It does not appear that these foundations 
ought necessarily to be the same as the super- 
structure. It is not a good thing to lay foun- 
dations of brick ; even when the edifice is to be 
of brick, the foundation should be of stone. 
Children are normally inclined to be orthodox. 
Their theology is necessarily crude, and we 
should tolerate the primitive in them. The 
revelations of a new world in puberty, and the 
dreamy contemplative period of adolescence, 
are times to allow liberty to the individual soul, 
not to demand conformity to either orthodox 
or liberal religious institutions and dogmas. 
In the school, children are helpful to each 
other ; the companionship, the friction of mind 
on mind, the contact of soul with soul, may 
be of greater value in forming character than 
the definite instructions of the class-room, or 
even the influence of the teacher's personality. 
Morris was right when he said that fellowship 
is life and the lack of it death. 

Later, there is the great critical period that 
[34] 



Temperament and Personality 

almost inevitably comes, when one is in love. 
The softening of rugged natures or the 
strengthening of timid ones, the awakening of 
the sluggish or the subjection of the aggres- 
sive attends the dawn of the light of love, as 
warmth and growth follow the rising sun. 
The import for the religious life can be seen 
when one's emotions surge up, and his egoism 
is overwhelmed, because there is something on 
the horizon more important than himself. 
There must also come a time when the mind 
opens to the standards of the higher life 
through reading books. Perhaps it may be 
that the majority are not much influenced by 
books. Yet if the right book comes at the 
right moment, it is convincing and imperative 
in its directing power. There is an independ- 
ence in its acceptance that makes increasingly 
significant the democratic influence of the pub- 
lic library, which is reaching the American 
youth numerically, far beyond the old private 
library or individual teacher. If we facilitate 
these opportunities, if we really guide the 
helm of such education, we shall accomplish 

[35] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

as much as if we gave direct ethical instruc- 
tion. 

The advantages of travel and its minor dis- 
advantages are not without moment. When 
a young man goes as a student to Germany, 
and begins to see the larger world, it changes 
the bent of his mind. His ideas of people and 
institutions — of life itself — all shift, and he 
not infrequently throws away his juvenile be- 
liefs. He does not, therefore, throw away his 
religion. Yet sometimes the suddenness of the 
reaction, when his education has been narrow, 
will lead to unwholesome rebellion. But we 
are not going, in consequence, to limit travel, 
because it broadens the mind, nor are we going 
to encourage indiscriminate travel in order to 
open the mind. With the growth of the hori- 
zon of his world, he gains, as far as human 
faculties are able, relationship with the uni- 
verse. If he cannot know absolutely the uni- 
verse, he can still get his best possible con- 
ception of infinity. 

For the adult, as for the child, there is need 
of friends and fellowship. Professor John 

[36] 



Temperament and Personality 

Dewey has said that definite ethical instruc- 
tion is quite unimportant as compared with 
the subtle influence of another personality at 
the critical moment. It is to be hoped that 
the members of ethical organizations and the 
communicants of the churches do not feel that 
the spoken word from the platform or pulpit 
is all the significance in a meeting of people. 
Men and women do not always express their 
opinions, but they create an atmosphere in the 
community and in society, as in the fellowship 
of religion. To have religion cordial, less 
trivial, with more vitality in it, increases the 
vividness of faith. With the revolutions and 
changes that have followed the contributions 
of science, with the enlarged critical attitude, 
and the possibility of fusing various tempera- 
ments, more people should have genuine, 
strong personalities than ever before in the 
world. This ought not to mean the denial of 
religion; but that religion is to be less dog- 
matic, more spontaneous, more genuine, more 
personal, and at the same time more social. 
It is good to live for others ; it is better to live 

[37] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

for all the others. That is the religion of a 
democrat — the dynamic to secure the realiza- 
tion of the fulness of life for all people. 



[38] 



THE CONSTRAINT OF 
ORTHODOXY 



[39] 



CHAPTER II 

THE CONSTRAINT OF ORTHODOXY 

IF each personality is to have a religion of 
his own stamped with the hall-mark of his 
individual temperament, will the necessity 
of drawing upon the vitality of the common 
contemporary life still condone orthodoxy? 
Orthodoxy is the consensus of opinion of a 
certain period; it may be of the immediate, 
but is usually of the remoter past. Ortho- 
doxy is not necessarily the most conservative 
thought. Progressive ideas may be incorpo- 
rated into the accepted faith, as well as conserv- 
ative conceptions. When the Roman Catholic 
church declared the dogma of the infallibility 
of the Pope, there was added conservatism to 
faith; yet in the same generation, there were 
modifications in favor of liberalism. Ortho- 
doxy is a less intense temperamental expression 

[41] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

than conformity. A man who has been con- 
victed of heresy is a man who doubts, but who 
wants to conform, and beheves that he ought 
to conform and remain in the church. Con- 
formity recognizes the esprit de corps of an 
ancient organization without' bowing to the 
yoke of antiquity. Bishop Potter was asked 
by a young clergyman if he, the Bishop, were 
a high churchman. ''When I came to New 
York," the young man said, "I was under that 
impression, but now my conclusion is differ- 
ent." Bishop Potter said: "When I came 
to New York, this house in which I live was 
'way up town; now it's 'way down town." So 
it is quite conceivable that the church, thought, 
and society may move while we stand still, 
and it is not always possible to remain ortho- 
dox by standing still. 

The constraint of orthodoxy may be seen 
as a handicap on thought, as cowardice in mor- 
als, as destroying spontaneity, and in the em- 
phasis of non-essentials. This constraint is 
particularly that of making people cowardly 
in thought and morals. There is a certain ac- 

[42] 



The Constraint of Orthodoxy 

cepted faith in which we have grown up, or 
we may have adopted it from choice. It is 
only with an act of courage and vigor that we 
come forth and announce a new conviction. 
We do not all enjoy great individuality, but 
there should be opportunity for expressing 
what we have. Orthodoxy tends, also, to em- 
phasize non-essentials. Look to the history of 
any great faith, and you will find that the 
conventional expression of it was marked by 
the exaltation of non-essentials. When we 
try to express our conception of democratic 
religion, to discover a basis for human broth- 
erhood, we learn that we must unite upon some 
simple declaration of faith — find some great 
common denominator by which we may in- 
tegrate life ; but when we rigidly cling to some 
orthodox faith we are laying the emphasis on 
non-essentials. 

Orthodoxy being correct ideas sanctioned by 
some accepted authority, it naturally governs 
not only religious faith, but social, political, 
and economic beliefs. The similarity of the 
influence of the various orthodoxies may; be 

[43] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

appreciated if we speak of religious orthodoxy 
as devotion; of social orthodoxy, as conven- 
tionality; of political orthodoxy as loyalty; 
and of economic orthodoxy as class-conscious- 
ness. 

In religious orthodoxy we find on the one 
hand devotion to dogma, and on the other 
devotion to sect. It is just as well that stu- 
dents of ethics should see that it is commonly 
action that determines thought, conduct which 
determines faith. It is no doubt true that 
some people's profession is better than their 
lives; but, taking society as a whole, its con- 
duct is often better than its faith — it is fre- 
quently more humane. For example, in 
Great Britain, at the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, the law imposed the death pen- 
alty for the stealing of a sheep or of five shil- 
lings. But the judges were more humane 
than the law, and gradually the law had to be 
modified. The conventional, the orthodox ex- 
pression in legislation, had to accommodate it- 
self to human conduct, which was better than 
the legal dogma. 

[44] 



The Constraint of Ortliodoocy 

So in the religious life, it is the slow im- 
provement of conduct, the gradually develop- 
ing code of morality of the period which de- 
termines the orthodox faith. We may retain 
the old words, and still read new conceptions 
into them, as we do with both creeds and con- 
stitutions. Therefore the tenacity wdth which 
we cling to a sect will be greater than the te- 
nacity with which w^e cling to dogma. Many 
people conform, and remain devoted to the 
church, because they think they can modify 
its dogma and confession of faith more read- 
ily than by going outside. There are those 
w^ho scrupulously do what others cannot do, 
stay within a church w^hich does not represent 
their personal conviction, because they feel 
that the faith will triumph. 

It may be argued that contemporary or- 
thodoxy will ultimately be found incorrect be- 
cause past orthodoxy has always proved false. 
It is easier to reason from analogy that the 
current orthodoxy w^e retain, — religious, politi- 
cal, social, economic, — has no more foundation 
than the orthodoxy we have rejected. The 

[45] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

impropriety of claiming any faith as authorita- 
tively orthodox is manifest if we observe the 
conflict of the orthodoxies. From the most 
contrasted to the nearest of kin, the one re- 
gards the other with pity or contempt. The 
obsession with one's own orthodoxy may not 
only constrain the intellectual vision but pro- 
duce moral obliquity. 

There were people who read and accepted 
the teachings of the late Colonel Ingersoll and 
were aided by them. But those who were con- 
sumed in their zeal for righteousness rather 
than rationalism were not helped at all, thej^ 
were not led into any higher life or thought. 
He repelled them, and this repulsion was prob- 
ably legitimate. It was dangerous to make 
so much of ''the mistakes of Moses." They 
were not the mistakes of Moses, and many, 
even of the orthodox, have been moved by the 
results of modern criticism to see that there 
are two decalogues and two series of laws in 
the Pentateuch, and that these early books are 
imperfect in many ways. But the fact that 
there were early writers who endeavored to 

[46] 



The Constraint of Orthodoocy 

bring together these histories and sayings, and 
attempted to reconcile them, is a greater tribute 
to their intrinsic merit than the idea that they 
were written by Moses. Colonel Ingersoll 
would have been just as much offended as the 
Christians were with his books, if some one 
else had written on the mistakes of McKinley, 
for Ingersoll was one of the most orthodox of 
political adherents. It was the blunder of one 
orthodox man having no respect for the be- 
liefs of men with another brand of orthodoxy. 
Crossing in a steamer once, from Philadel- 
phia to a European port, were a number of 
Mormons going over to proselyte in Europe. 
They were given a chance to talk one Sunday 
evening. It was unexpectedly impressive ; the 
man who gave the address was an honest man ; 
he was a devout believer and spoke intelli- 
gently. He told of the Mormon revelation — ■ 
how the leaves of gold were handed down to 
the first prophet, how he had them transliter- 
ated and translated, how, unfortunately, the 
leaves of gold were lost, and how the transla- 
tion also was lost. All the evidences were 

[47] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

gone, but they still believed in that revelation. 
It was a remarkable spectacle, but what was 
most impressive was the contempt of the or- 
thodox people present for this Mormon faith, 
founded on lost records. They were entirely 
forgetful of the fact that as regards the ten 
commandments there is no more secure foun- 
dation for the Jewish or Christian faith. They 
could not see that the virtue in their code is in 
its ethical quality. One orthodox group could 
not understand another orthodox group in 
points where the basis of orthodoxy was iden- 
tical. 

A church federation in New York caused a 
good deal of discussion and even animosity in 
the country because they left out the Unita- 
rians and certain other religious faiths. It 
was an evangelical organization, which unites 
in a conformity which they can comprehend. 
It is not necessary to discuss whether they are 
right or wrong. It is conceivable that if they 
had included the Unitarians, they w^ould have 
left out some other faith, whose members were 
equally desirous of serving the world. It is 

[48] 



The Constraint of Orthodoxy 

not less than the brand of Cain that one type 
of rehgion puts upon another. 

During the Russo-Japanese war most of our 
sympathies were with Japan; and the people 
who sympathized with Russia did so, generally, 
not from a consideration of the merits of the 
controversy, but because the Greek church 
(which is custodian of the faith in Russia) 
is more nearly akin to the Roman Catholic 
church and the Church of England, than is 
the paganism cf the Japanese. Consequently, 
their sympathies went out to the Russians, 
simply because of an alleged religious fellow- 
ship. But surely there should be a deeper re- 
lation between a good Japanese and a good 
Christian than between two churchmen who 
use the same words periodically in religious 
worship. The communion of responsive 
hearts needs not the sanction of the laying on 
of hands. 

Whatever we may feel about religious or- 
thodoxy, we shall sympathize more with what 
is to us heterodox if we see how far orthodoxy 
expresses itself in other phases of our life. 

[49] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

Orthodoxy is most conspicuous in social life. 
It is not so thoroughly organized; its tradition 
is not so long; but it is just as imperious in 
social life as in religion. It is determined 
largely by the upper classes, as they are called 
in Europe; and here by the incipient leisure 
class, even though it consist largely of noviti- 
ates. What is the foundation of the faith of 
social orthodoxy? Let us do justice to it. It 
has a long pedigree of merit, and most social 
usages originate in actual service and real 
courtes3^ But how often it holds up artificial 
standards and yields uncompromising recog- 
nition to worn out customs ! To these is given 
worshipful allegiance by weak and irrational 
conventions. In one of Howells' farces, the 
crisis is reached in the hero's dilemma of being 
without his dress coat for the immediate occa- 
sion. The play was once the unfortunate 
choice of the Hull House Dramatic Club. 
The audience remained stolid and apathetic, 
with no wonted exuberance of enjoyment and 
applause, since they were mystified and non- 

[50] 



The Constraint of Orthodoxy 

plussed by the agitation over an inconsequen- 
tial misfortune. 

Social orthodoxy is easily seen in the attitude 
of well-to-do people towards domestic serv- 
ants. One hears constantly of the insoluble 
problem of domestic service; we have to put 
up with incompetency and indifference at ex- 
orbitant wages. But we must have them — it 
is said. It is not merely a question of trouble. 
It is often more trouble to keep servants than 
to do without. But to part with them would 
be a menace to social position ; it is orthodox to 
keep them. It is our accustomed faith, and 
we do not know any other. We have tried to 
solve the problem by seventeenth century per- 
sonal methods, and we are failing, not assur- 
edly because of the application of reason or 
rationalism, but because we are clinging to an 
outworn custom. 

It may be remembered that Eugene Bichter, 
in his criticism of Social Democracy, said that 
the reason why the Germans and other people 
could not enter upon such a democratic regime 

[51] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

was because it involved the universal necessity 
of polishing one's own shoes — das Allge- 
meinestiefelputzenmilssen. The heterdoxy of 
President Lincoln is conspicuous by contrast 
in the familiar story of the Ambassador who, 
finding the President engaged in this humble 
occupation, exclaimed, ''Why, do you polish 
your own shoes?" "Yes," said Lincoln, "whose 
shoes do you polish?" In America, where 
quite a few of the socially orthodox have pol- 
ished their own shoes, this special obstacle to 
democracy is not so formidable — yet it is akin 
to many other conventions. Could anything 
be more puerile than to let one's conception of 
society hinge on anything so trivial? Still al- 
most every one, in even the humblest society, 
is similarly susceptible. 

A frequent attitude toward the Japanese 
and Chinese is most unreasonable and may 
involve us in serious difficulties. We have 
had the question before our courts, pushed 
with all the energy of the Pacific coast, as to 
whether the Japanese shall not be excluded 
from the same schools from which we exclude 

[52] 



The Constraint of Orthodoxy 

the Chinese. Quite aside from the question 
of oriental competition, surely in our commer- 
cial and economic relations, there is only one 
way to view a man, and that is as a man. Many 
Occidentals are not prepared to view as men 
either the Japanese or the Chinese, which ob- 
viously reflects upon themselves more than 
upon other men. It is safe to venture the 
statement that Americans and Europeans gen- 
erally have a higher opinion of the Japanese 
than of the Chinese. But this opinion may not 
be founded upon any special experience, or at 
best upon a very limited experience. At the 
Saint Louis exposition, I had the opportunity 
of hearing a Chinese woman address several 
thousand members of the Federation of Wom- 
en's Clubs, and of dining and spending the 
evening with a Chinaman. The woman was 
a doctor of philosophy from Bryn Mawr, a 
talented woman who, not only had the edu- 
cation of American w^omen, but in addition, 
oriental culture. They knew the English lan- 
guage as we could never hope to know the 
Chinese, yet they were still Chinese, with thou- 

[53] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

sands of years of venerable tradition bound up 
in them. If we have no veneration for the 
ancient why should we at the same time de- 
spise the immature? If the negro race can 
produce a Booker Washington, surely it is 
time to abandon our social orthodoxy, and 
agree that ''a man's a man for a' that." Until 
we do, we have no right to raise our voices 
against religious orthodoxy. 

If we speak of religious orthodoxy as devo- 
tion, political orthodoxy is loyalty. What 
will not a man do for that? Is it loyalty to 
his country? Not at all. Is it loyalty to his 
fellowmen? No. It is loyalty to party. Is 
there any more hopeless orthodoxy than that 
of the man who always votes his party-ticket 
— and he is numbered by the million! It is 
more hurtful to us than is wrong political 
theory. Mr. Wells, in ''The Future in Amer- 
ica" has shown us what a remarkable people 
we are to cling to tradition. Our political 
thought is still largely in the eighteenth cen- 
tury; it has not reached the nineteenth, not to 
sajr the twentieth. Yet all that devotion to 

[54] 



The Constraint of Orthodoxy 

tradition does not compare with a man's fealty 
to his party. 

When the Democratic party begins to advo- 
cate municipal ownership, and government 
regulation of private ownership, it is illogical. 
The Republican party is the party of paternal- 
ism, although it has represented the govern- 
ment of the strong against the weak. But 
this does not worry us at all. When Demo- 
cratic editors, who have always believed in lib- 
erty and individualism, advocate public own- 
ership is it because they believe in it, or be- 
cause they are ''democratic" ? No, but because 
they have a great political organization to up- 
hold. One of our most ancient and pernicious 
legacies is the orthodox system of checks in 
our nation. We have the Senate checking the 
House, the President checking both, and the 
Supreme Court checking all three. We have 
all kinds of checks, by which we hope to get 
an automatic, political system. We have even 
introduced this limit of political imbecility 
into our city goverimients. We have in some 
of our cities two councilmanic bodies, one to 

[55] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

check the other, and the result is to checkmate 
the people. We also still cling to the idea 
that the best government is that which gov- 
erns least. It is an unqualified contradiction, 
because the best governed places are those gov- 
erned most — that is, where the government is 
most efficient, and least corrupt. When every- 
thing is entrusted to private enterprise it 
means that government is doing things cir- 
cuitously, clumsily, corruptly. 

We have gradually grown to the belief that 
one man power will secure results for us. The 
one man power is an easy method of carrying 
out that system of checks. It is the device of 
lazy citizens, who do not want to do anything 
for themselves. That is a legitimate concep- 
tion if you believe in autocracy. Because 
when you choose your representative, you are 
confusing the idea of democracy with the idea 
that one man is by some miracle going to do 
everything for the public good, without the 
people taking any initiative. We can see how 
we came by this way of thinking. Consider 
our big corporations, which are so splendidly 

[56] 



The Constraint of Orthodoocy 

organized; think of a great railroad system 
with a genius at the head, a wonderful admin- 
istration — wonderful facility with which one 
man is allowed to represent the stockholders. 
The great object is that the corporation shall 
be profitable, which does not mean serviceable. 
If it is serviceable, it is that it may be more 
profitable. It is one of those illusory forms 
of orthodoxy which make us supine. We see 
a well-managed organization, and we do not 
ask the question whether it might not be bet- 
ter to do things ourselves — morally, and spirit- 
ually, as well as economically better — to par- 
ticipate in the management of our lives. In 
American parlance, "We are after results!" 
the method by which Esau attained distinc- 
tion in history ! 

If political orthodoxy is loyalty, and reli- 
gious orthodoxy devotion, economic orthodoxy 
is represented by the familiar term "class-con- 
sciousness." Whether it be the class-con- 
sciousness of the capitalist, or that of the 
working man, it represents orthodoxy. We 
have been brought up to bow before the fetich 

[57] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

of competition. In our economic ritual we 
are accustomed to such antiphonal responses 
as ''competition is the Hfe of trade," "business 
is business/' "every man for himself and the 
devil take the hindmost;" "let him get who can, 
and keep who is able;" or, as it has been re- 
cently revised, "I want what I want when I 
want it." That expresses the economic faith 
of most of us, or the "service" we render in 
lieu of faith. It is peculiarly difficult for us 
to turn to any other belief. The person who 
disbelieves in competition must follow his in- 
dustrial leaders, he cannot altogether abandon 
in practice, his orthodox, economic faith, which 
seems to be completely supported by the trend 
of events, by his own success or failure. 

Through the last century, or more, of great 
industrial development there have come into 
play certain forces so convincing in their re- 
sults that they condition our economic faith. 
Science and industry, practical science and the 
great doctrine of evolution, all seem to con- 
firm our faith in the survival of the fittest. 
There is nothing more logical than going back 

[58] 



The Constraint of Orthodoxy 

to nature. There are still multitudes of peo- 
ple who do not follow Darwin in his ''Origin 
of Species," but, on the whole, the idea of 
evolution has percolated and permeated all 
through human consciousness, until we accept 
so much as seems to conform to our methods 
of industry. 

''Hustle" is our god, and Mr, Kidd and Mr. 
Mallock are his prophets. In the utterances 
of Mr, Mallock and of Professor Barrett 
Wendell we have the apotheosis of genius. 
They say that the great man produces by his 
genius what the multitude cannot produce, and 
the power of the social genius raises the multi- 
tude to the maximum of liberty. But they 
overlook the fact that the evolution of the mul- 
titude makes the genius possible. Man makes 
a railroad, and more people can travel. The 
standard of living is raised, and all want to be 
able to come up to that standard. The big 
man is enriched because he does these things, 
but he lives because we live ; we do not live be- 
cause he lives. 

Then again there is another economic shib- 
[59] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

boleth, the Anglo-Saxon idea of liberty. It 
has run riot with us. It means the right, 
seemingly, to do as one pleases, and most of us 
live by this faith. In all candor, — do we not? 
Do we not, whatever our social or political af- 
filiation, obey that facile law when the crucial 
moment comes? Do we not take the law into 
our own hands? Our ethical standards are 
such that we are tempted to do it in many cases. 
We do not perhaps rob great corporations, or 
break into banks, or steal from our neighbor — 
but we fail to pay our taxes, or we beat the 
railway companies or the custom house. There 
are various methods by which we can condone 
our offenses. What is the use of paying the 
full rate when other people are paying one- 
half or one-fifth. There is no justice in a man's 
laying on himself these unnecessary burdens! 
But if the law is unjust, it should be modified. 
To disobey the law is to demand personal lib- 
erty against social welfare. Until we can get 
our practical ethics attuned to fine, moral dis- 
criminations we are still orthodox economists. 
Perhaps the most significant example of this 
[60] 



The Constraint of Orthodoocy 

tendency to adhere to orthodox economic faith 
is represented in the revolt against it. JMany 
are coming to see that organized society is su- 
perior to the individual, that the welfare of 
the mass is better than the welfare of the unit. 
In the extension of social functions lies the 
hope of laying the foundations for a sound 
political structure. But the people who most 
clearly enunciate this doctrine, who see the 
tendency of the great corporations to central- 
ize power and wealth, — the socialists, — have 
their faith built upon orthodox foundations. 
It is curious that socialist economics are traced 
back to orthodox economics in England and 
Germany. The premises upon which Marx 
builds are found in the classical political econ- 
omy. The devotion to Karl Marx is a devotion 
similar to that which other people pay to 
Moses, or Paul, Hamilton, or Jefferson. On 
the part of many it is thought out clearly, and 
one is inclined to join in what Mr. J. G. 
Brooks has said, that no group of people are 
thinking so hard as the socialists; but their 
thought is limited by the fact that they started 

[61] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

from orthodox dogmas, and it is hard for them 
to become heterodox or progressive. 

Orthodoxy, as has been said, is not merely 
rehgious. It is Hkely to affect people through 
the whole range of their thought. As there 
are people who are temperamentally orthodox, 
so there are people who are temperamentally 
heterodox. We, and they, have a perfect right 
to say that our orthodoxy cannot be wholly 
wrong, since it is the result of the great tradi- 
tions of the human race. There must be 
sound, valuable, ethical content in a religious, 
social, political or economic belief, to make it 
prevail. It is orthodoxy's privilege, "to keep 
the faith." But faith is a dynamic itself, and 
many orthodox people, though hampered in 
their thinking and living by their orthodoxy, 
are nevertheless more sympathetic with the 
progress of the day, and are contributing more 
to it, than many other people who have no eco- 
nomic, political, or religious faith at all. 

Still orthodoxy obscures the infinite and uni- 
versal. The use of the word is nearly always 
arrogant, as though the appropriation of a 

[62] 



The Constraint of Orthodoxy 

Greek designation for right thinking in itself 
guarantees the thought. No body of doctrine 
can secure the consent of the ages unless it 
include vital truth ; but the stamp of orthodoxy 
is put upon the ephemeral and personal vani- 
ties* as freely as it is upon the eternal verities. 
Some religions provide food for the dead, an 
obviously mundane observance, which seems 
absurd to those people who are looking for a 
promised land in some definite portion of the 
earth's surface, an equally finite faith. The 
unconcern for the infinities is also illustrated 
in prayer for physical needs. There is a 
pretty naivete in the child's supplication for 
all sorts of impossible benefactions; but there 
is an egotistical contempt for the laws of the 
universe, and, "the ways which are past finding 
out" of the infinite Powder, in the bland request 
of the adult, that these laws be suspended for 
his personal convenience. 

The conflict of orthodoxy and heterodoxy 
may be never-ending; but a democratic re- 
ligion, while leaving the individual free in non- 
essentials, will seek to relate man to the realm 

[631 



The Religion of a Democrai 

of infinite and universal Truth, where there is 
no speech or language, where its voice is not 
heard. Shall we recognize the voice of Truth 
because it speaks the patois of orthodoxy or 
commands with stentorian tones of authority? 
When we pass from the constraint of ortho- 
doxy to the decay of authority we may find that 
adventitious or external aid is unnecessary be- 
cause the faith of the common life is made 
intelligible to the democratic believer by a still, 
small voice. 



[64] 



THE DECAY OF AUTHORITY. 



[65] 



CHAPTER III 

THE DECAY OF AUTHOKITY 

THE decay of authority is not complete. 
Authority is still tenacious of its power, 
and it is not desirable that it should ut- 
terly decay. As Emerson said, ''The creeds 
into which we were initiated in childhood and 
youth no longer hold their place in the minds 
of thoughtful men, but they are not nothing 
to us, and we hate to have them treated with 
contempt." We are only passing from he- 
reditary, traditional authority to spontaneous, 
individual and social authority; the decay is 
the decay of irresponsible, injudicious and ir- 
rational authority. 

John Ruskin has a memorable passage in 
which he observes the difference between a 
faithful dog and a house-fly. He is writing 
and his dog is impatient to take a walk, but 

[67] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

is compelled to tarry until his master has fin- 
ished. The dog is told to wait and he waits 
obediently. Meanwhile, a common house-fly 
buzzes with impunity about the poet's head 
and lights impudently upon the nose of the 
dog, lawless, unrestrained. Ruskin says that 
this is the idea of liberty which some people 
hold before themselves; to do just what they 
please. Surely the house dog, subject to obe- 
dience, is superior to the house-fly, which 
knows no law. 

Obedience to a chosen and worthy authority 
is not the same, however, as blind obedience, 
devoid of reason. Kate Douglas Wiggin has 
characterized the boy who stood upon the burn- 
ing deck as an ''inspired idiot," human author- 
ity triumphing over natural law. He had 
learned self-sacrifice, but not self -direction. It 
has been one of the contradictory faults of 
our growing democracy that we have been slow 
to recognize that, while blind obedience is de- 
structive of character, intelligent obedience 
may be up-building and helpful. The en- 
deavor to break ancient bonds and establish 

[68] 



The Decay of Authority 



new laws involves danger. In discussing the 
decay of authority it is necessary to recognize 
that, rid of old fetters, we must still respect 
new bonds; if the old testament is broken, we 
are under the spell of new gospels. 

It is logical to note first the decay of per- 
sonal authority, which is manifest in the case 
of the decline of parental control, especially 
that of the father. It has progressed so far 
in America that we may be inclined to give a 
new interpretation to the saying "The child 
is father of the man," since there is open re- 
bellion against the impertinence of the Amer- 
ican child. This assists us in understanding 
the decline of parental authority. There can 
be no reverence unless there are objects worthy 
to be revered. The flippancy of the Amer- 
ican adult would naturally rob him of the re- 
spect once enforced by a conventional dig- 
nity. 

There has also been, throughout the last cen- 
tury, frequent interference by the state with 
the power of the parent. With the develop- 
ment of the English factory system, the abso- 

[69] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

lute control of the child's life began to reveal 
itself as inhuman and undesirable. In spite 
of the exploitation of children by their par- 
ents, it took many years to bring about even 
temperate legislation, because of the dread 
that in interfering with old standards, they 
would "flee to ills they knew not of." So 
noble a humanitarian as John Bright objected 
to the passage of the factory laws, limiting the 
age of children and the hours of child labor in 
the factories, because this would interfere with 
the moral responsibility of the fathers, and the 
paternalism of the state might thereby sup- 
plant parental affection. But in the course of 
the century, we have been compelled to hedge 
about that father, to impress upon him his du- 
ties, to conmiand and compel him to care for 
the child for whose protection his love has 
proved insufficient. 

A noticeable decline is also witnessed in the 
authority of the husband over the wife. Most 
people are still married by the old formula in 
which the wife promises to love, honor and 
obey; but an increasing number use the words 

[70] 



TJie Decay of 'Authority 



as they do those of theu' creeds, with a reser- 
vation; while those are multiplying who are 
willing to place the sexes on a basis of equal 
authority. If there must be authority in the 
house, it is said, let it be a matter of function, 
not to be determined by sex alone, but with 
reference to all the interests of the home. It 
is only necessary to look about, however, to 
find that this loss of authority by the husband 
has plunged us into a maelstrom of moral and 
social problems, not because we ought to go 
back to recognizing the old authority of the 
''head of the house," but because the newer 
democratic system is still undeveloped. 

A similar decline is to be observed in the 
authority of the employer, not merely in the 
older patriarchal sense, but in the larger con- 
ception of the representative of society. In 
the old industrial relations, the employer had 
absolute responsibility for the life of his em- 
ployee, and with that went a corresponding 
authority. The evolution of industry has 
given the employer a new supremacy, but it 
is not personal, as it was in the older systems. 

[71] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

In all of these cases, of father, husband, or 
employer, the decline of personal authority 
has exhibited a tendency from the spiritual 
to the pecuniary relationship. At first thought 
this is discouraging to all who are trying to 
enlarge the spiritual bounds of society; but it 
must be conceded that the drift is, for the most 
part, wholesome. The pecuniary control of 
the master of the purse over children and wife, 
or the cash relation between employer and em- 
ployed, gives a freedom to the individuality 
of the dependent which is not possible when 
one personality is authoritatively imposed up- 
on another. It is only through the prelim- 
inary substitution of the pecuniary for the 
personal dominance that we can hope to reach 
^ eventual emancipation. 

The weakening of economic authority has 
passed through certain conspicuous historic 
stages. In the old feudal relationship there 
was a condition or status, in many ways satis- 
factory to the people who, accustomed to its 
restraint, lived under it with little friction. To 
large communities for centuries it seemed de- 

[72] 



The Decay of Authority 



sirable, and the breaking with it brought dis- 
aster. The lords under the feudal system felt 
responsibility and exercised it in a way the 
employer of labor to-day does not and cannot 
think of doing. Loyalty and chivalry in in- 
dustry have passed ; but they are regretted only 
by those who rejoice in the power of domina- 
tion. As this authority was broken, a transi- 
tional domestic system simply intensified the 
personal relation. The emploj^er and the em- 
ployee worked side by side, frequently lived 
under the same roof, and the workman often 
married into the employer's family. From the 
standpoint of productivity, it was an idyllic 
relationship; but there was not the power of 
social, intellectual, and moral growth which is 
in the system which succeeded it. 

At first glance it seems like a distinct retro- 
gression to pass on to the capitalistic organiza- 
tion of society, where men are dealt with by 
the mass, in contrast with the old, simple, in- 
dividual relationship. However, it is coming 
to be seen, that, in spite of the evils of the 
capitalistic system, with its loss of personality 

[73] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

and individual productivity, society secures a 
greater freedom and the foundation of a 
larger life than could have been known under 
the domestic or any other personal regime. 
This is observed most conspicuously if one 
contrast the new industries with the survivals 
of the old, domestic service or the sweating 
system. Who would prefer the existence of 
the sweat-shop slave, or domestic servant, to 
that of the independent worker in the factory, 
(under the supervision of the state? Incom- 
plete as is factory organization, its competi- 
tion threatens the extinction of those belated 
industries. 

One must not mourn over the death of the 
old system, yet in the new industrial order, it 
is perfectly appalling to face the power which 
resides in the hands of a few. The report of 
the explosion in an Alabama mine, in w^hich 
sixty men were killed, naively stated that the 
employers had done everything they could to 
make the working men contented, and that the 
latter were all non-union men. In a state 
where legislation is difficult because of the 

[74] 



The Decay of Authority 



recent rise from the status of primitive in- 
dustry, and where the employers are organ- 
ized, but the working men are not, explosions, 
physical and otherwise, are inevitable. Yet 
with the fearful multiplication of such in- 
stances we are undaunted, for we see that in 
the present system there are possibilities not 
inherent in the earlier forms of industry. We 
have passed from status to contract; we shall 
move on to cooperation; at first, collective 
bargaining, and then collectivism. The transi- 
tion has been made from personal to pecuni- 
ary authority ; it will go on to authority gained 
by service, in fulfilment of the great moral 
truth "he who would be chief among you, let 
him be the servant of all." 

All this is seen more clearly if we turn from 
the decay of economic to the decline of po- 
litical authority. Under the feudal system 
the great mass of people were deprived of 
their personal liberty. They lived and died in 
one place, in the service of the feudal lord. 
With the first breaking away from this tyr- 
anny, the men who went to the towns risked 

[75] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

their lives, because they lost all claim on the 
baron by disregarding the only responsible 
authority. Nevertheless, they went to the 
city, taking their lives in their hands, and there 
they organized guilds for their common pro- 
tection. 

It is not necessary to elaborate the story of 
the downfall of feudalism. The king saw the 
possibility of building up in the cities a power 
that would make him independent of the feu- 
dal lords. He could never have developed the 
power of the crown against the lords without 
the support of the cities. It was the alle- 
giance of the city masses which strengthened 
royalty and annihilated the power of the bar- 
ons ; more than that, it was the inevitable prec- 
edent of the coming events. There could have 
been no democracy without this interregnum 
of the king. The divided people were incapa- 
ble of resisting the power of the barons; the 
united people developed nationalism, and the 
king was compelled to concede to them the 
rudiments of representative government. 

Representative government, as thus far de- 
[76] 



The Decay of Authority 



veloped, is as unsatisfactory as many people 
think the evolution of organized industry will 
be. ''The never-ending audacity of elected 
persons" is the inevitable result of unrestrained 
representation in industry or politics. One 
impression we are receiving in this slow proc- 
ess of political evolution, is that divided au- 
thority does not mean independence. The 
possession of the suffrage for the choice of so- 
called representatives does not guarantee de- 
mocracy. The authority is, as yet, neither with 
the people, nor with the representatives. The 
hereditary power of the latter is gone ; but the 
voice of the former is still uncertain. Tradi- 
tional authority has been supplanted by a par- 
tisan, irregular, indirect authority, which 
makes us almost incapable of self-government. 
One of the problems of democracy is to get 
the things which require attention directly and 
simply before the people's minds, so that they 
will exercise the authority belonging to them. 
There is little choice between a hereditary ruler 
and a political boss; government ex cathedra 
must not be mistaken for vox populL 

[77] 



TJie Religion of a Democrat 

Perhaps better service may be secured 
through good citizenship out of a double coun- 
cil, commissions, vetoes and all our illusory 
system of checks, than bad citizens could get 
out of simple, direct democracy; but it is al- 
together improbable in these great cities which 
have suffered so long from divided authority 
that they will ever get good administration un- 
til their attention is fixed on the single coun- 
cil, elected at large by direct nomination, made 
fully responsible, and controlled by the refer- 
endum and initiative. What is true of local 
government is equally true of state and federal 
administration. Representative government is 
a transitory, divided authority between the un- 
questioned hereditary power of feudalism and 
the independent intelligence of democracy! 

Personal, economic, political authority, — 
each is being shorn of its traditional power; 
and social authority must go the same way. 
None of these protests inspires more regret 
than the decline of the prestige of the family. 
There is a great charm about the security of 
position of the good old families in the more 

[T8] 



The Decay of Authority 



ancient towns. There is a fine, romantic sen- 
timent about noblesse oblige. There is a loss 
of dehcacy and refinement with the encroach- 
ments of commerciahsm, but Hke other ancient 
institutions of society, the old family can only 
be said to average up well. It produces its 
share, and more, of black sheep; it inspires 
motives as unworthy as the most sordid pur- 
suit of position through pelf. The genealog- 
ical fakers fatten on family ambitions, and 
''Revolutionary" sons and daughters attempt 
to conceal their ancestral egotism under a 
veneer of patriotism. A chorus of myths, 
ghosts and skeletons attends the pasans which 
are chanted south of Market street in Philadel- 
phia and in the Back Bay of Boston. 

The claim that family connection can re- 
store the lost prestige of the vicious is a se- 
rious indictment. The finished product of a 
good family needs no certificated tree; his 
measure is merit, not pedigree. In the face 
of physiological decay and degeneration, it 
seems absurd that the dominance of family 
should persist. Without question it gives the 

[79] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

opportunity for the culture and refinement of 
children, yet barrenness is the fate of its ex- 
clusiveness. 

It is perfectly true that the individual of 
wealth cannot break at once into the best so- 
ciety; but he has only to be patient. He or 
his children will enter and his progeny will be 
accredited with the tradition of family. In- 
evitably family must buy its title to continue 
its sway. The rule of wealth is repugnant to 
the well-born and the cultured; but it is log- 
ical. Its aristocracy is no more spurious than 
that of birth, and, increasingly, it will be 
based on merit. The great economic interests 
will not down; the control of the future be- 
longs to them; but it is possible that, instead 
of allowing them to materialize society, so- 
ciety may spiritualize them. 

The one persistent influence which refuses 
to yield to economic dominance is that of race ; 
the decay of its authority is less apparent. 
It is true that the commerce between nations 
indicates the breaking down of race distinc- 
tions. People of a different tongue are not 

[80] 



The Decay of Authority 



so despised by the English speaking world 
as they were; but the recrudescence of race 
antipathy, as manifested between the so- 
called superior and inferior races, is one of 
the most discouraging contradictions of our 
vaunted democracy. The European white 
man — and especially the English speaking 
wliite man — is dominant not only in the Oc- 
cident, but in much of the Orient. We are 
told that the white man must rule, whether he 
rules according to the modern ideal, or ac- 
cording to ancient or mediaeval principles. 
It is even claimed in Great Britain that a re- 
turn to savage methods of warfare, is essen- 
tial in dealing with the primitive people of 
Africa. 

It is time to remember that the conquest of 
the Anglo-Saxon (whatever that is) in Great 
Britain, the United States, and Australasia, 
where his triumph has been most spectacular, 
is not by authority, but by assimilation. The 
English race is a peculiarly mixed race, to say 
nothing of the constant infusion from its still 
independent allies, the Scottish, the Welsh, and 

[81] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

the Irish. The American is a more recent 
conglomerate of various elements, but in no 
conceivable sense Anglo-Saxon. Yet the so- 
called Anglo-Saxon institutions, which con- 
trol the most important part of the world, 
owe their strength to the race which adminis- 
ters them. The assimilation of kindred races 
has been so successful, and amalgamation of 
widely diverse races, either by blood or suf- 
frage, is so promising in Hawaii and New 
Zealand, that the dispassionate observer must 
cease to be dogmatic as to the racial rule of 
the future. The one assured conclusion seems 
to be that race dominion whether by control 
or assimilation, will not soon succumb to pe- 
cuniary authority. Yet even here, economic 
opportunity is the safest corrective of racial 
antagonism, and the decline of race exploita- 
tion will accompany scientific, economic ad- 
ministration. 

The decay of the authority of intellect one 
is still more reluctant to admit; indeed, it is 
claimed that all other forms of authority 
should bow before intelligence. Learning is 

[82] 



The Decay of Authority 



worthy of all respect; the rule of the philos- 
ophers is to be desired; but there are just the 
same fictitious claims made in its behalf as 
are found in the economic and political world. 
The merited advantage, due to the ability to 
read and write, we have largely eliminated by 
popular education, but the discrepancy be- 
tween the most and the least learned is so con- 
spicuous as to constitute a form of privilege 
akin to that of wealth or race. The moment 
privilege loosens its grip on one thing, it takes 
hold of another. To him that hath shall be 
given, is a law of nature as well as of scrip- 
ture. It is as easy to accumulate advantage 
on the basis of a liberal education as it is to 
multiply riches when one has a start over one's 
competitors. 

It is an intellectual ingrate who, having se- 
cured some accidental advantage over his fel- 
lows by superior culture, attempts to brow- 
beat them into permanent subjection on the 
ground that they are incapable of his attain- 
ments. One of the ablest captains of indus- 
try, and contemporary lai^yers (who has re- 

[83] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

habilitated a discredited corporation), at the 
opening of a pubKc high school delivered an 
address, founded exclusively on eighteenth 
century thought, the atmosphere in which the 
cultured like to keep the uncultured. His 
chief authority was Adam Smith whose 
''Wealth of Nations," written in 1776, was 
not only an epoch-making work, but bears a 
peculiar aroma of sanctity by association with 
the historic year in which it appeared. There 
was held up to the youth of this people's col- 
lege, and the inhabitants of the country in 
general (for the papers have given publicity 
to the address) the philosophy, politics, and 
educational ideals of the eighteenth century. 

This man, whose industrial activities have 
abundantly qualified him for a twentieth cen- 
tury position, because of the constant use of 
twentieth century processes and twentieth cen- 
tury science, is nevertheless content with and 
offers deliberately, or guilelessly, to the youth 
of to-day a philosophy more than a hundred 
years out of date. The address concluded 
with the platitude "A little knowledge is a 

[84] 



The Decay of Authority 



dangerous thing." Innocent of the emphasis 
which his own words gave to this doctrine, the 
speaker blandly warned the patrons of this 
great public school that they must be content 
with their humble positions and not aspire to 
heights of culture. Such is the arrogance of 
the intellectually privileged. The intellect 
will increasingly exercise authority, but with 
the growth of democratic culture, the author- 
ity of the intellectuals will decay. 

The decay of authority is nowhere so man- 
ifest as in the religious world. Are people 
becoming less religious, or may we hope to be 
passing, as Sabatier says, from the religions 
of authority to the religion of the spirit; cer- 
tainly authority is decadent. It is possible to 
illustrate this in the history of religion, from 
the most primitive superstitions to the refine- 
ments of the great monotheistic faiths. It 
will serve our purpose, however, to draw our 
illustrations from Christianity alone. Theol- 
ogy is always interpreted by the times. The 
personal Christianity of Palestine, expressed 
in the lives of those faithful followers of 

[85] 



Tlie Religion of a Democrat 

Jesus, who taking him literally, both in his 
economic and spiritual teachings, founded a 
communistic colony, succumbed to the insti- 
tutional Christianity of Rome. Whatever 
may have been lost in intensity by the surren- 
der of an ardent, personal faith, guiding 
every phase of conduct, Christianity doubtless 
spread through the world by capturing the 
imperial influence of Rome. 

The church of the middle ages felt the in- 
fluence of the great sense of social responsibil- 
ity in feudalism, then of the growing spirit 
of democracy, which was incorporated in 
guilds and towns, and jdelded finally to the 
commercialism which followed the discovery 
of America. Theology and the church have 
been the creatures of the time, not the creators. 
Authority has been maintained by conformity 
to the ruling institutions, whether in politics 
or industry. 

The authority of theology received a new 
accession of power with the decline of eccle- 
siasticism at the time of the Protestant Refor- 
mation. The present reaction against the 

[86] 



The Decay of Authority 



Reformation enables us to see it in a little 
clearer perspective. The right of private 
judgment and liberty to read the Bible are in- 
estimable gains, but we are beginning to see 
the price at which they were bought. Coin- 
cident with the Reformation was the circula- 
tion of books printed with movable types, and 
the popular ability to read. In consequence, 
not only was "the Book" substituted for the 
church as the foundation for authority, but 
authority in general began to be drawn from 
books. The effect of the clear, black print 
on the white page is so much simpler and more 
vivid than other impressions for most people, 
that whether they derive their opinion from 
the sacred scriptures, secular books, or the 
newspaper, the authority of the printed page 
transcends, for those who read, all other au- 
thority. Even people who pride themselves 
on their independent judgment will call up 
from the recesses of their minds some impres- 
sion which, however unauthoritative, remains 
indelible because of having been seen in print. 
When to this authority of the book is added 
[87] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

the dogma, which naturally grew in the ill- 
tutored minds of the post-Reformation popu- 
lation, of the infallibility of the sacred writ- 
ings (even when translated into the vernacu- 
lar), there developed an authority as com- 
manding as that of the church, but less 
successful because of the diversity of inter- 
pretation, due to the right of private judg- 
ment. It was inevitable that the zeal of those, 
who found divine sanction for their personal 
opinions, should burn heretics. It is equally 
inevitable that this privilege of private inves- 
tigation should lead ultimately to the destruc- 
tion of the authority of both Church and 
Book. 

With the progress of thought and morality, 
it came to pass that some of the inhuman doc- 
trines of the scripture and the theologians con- 
flicted with the humaner sentiments of the 
great ethical teachers and the people. The 
humanistic movements which prompted men 
to more just living were seldom sanctioned by 
the church, yet exercised a profound influence 
on theology. The popular efl*ect of thesQ 

[88] 



The Decay of Authority 



was palpable in the growing disbelief in hell 
during the nineteenth century. The scriptural 
doctrine of hell is incompatible with human- 
itarianism. The idea that one could commit 
any offense in the brief span of human life 
which would warrant eternal torment, was too 
immoral for the enlightenment of the nine- 
teenth century. The church w^as not only un- 
able to stem the tide of disbelief in hell, but 
seemed to acquiesce in the idea w^hich Carlyle 
castigated, that not content to be without a hell, 
the English people had devised ''the hell of 
not making money." The social doctrine of 
the twentieth century promises to force upon 
the church an even superior hell, which Charles 
Ferguson calls ''the hell of not making good." 
The destructive attacks of the unsympa- 
thetic have been reenforced by the reverent 
investigations of theologians. The higher 
criticism of the bible which was used so ef- 
fectively by Spinoza and other early writers, 
became both more scientific and more popular 
in the nineteenth century. Higher criticism 
is nothing more than reading between the lines, 

[89] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

It has received most valuable contributions 
from profound students of Semitic and clas- 
sical languages, who have investigated the 
sources of the scriptural canon, but it can be 
used as effectively by the reader of the trans- 
lated bible, who employs the common sense 
method of Tolstoy. To the believer in the in- 
spiration of the scriptures it may be a matter 
of great moment whether Moses wrote the 
Pentateuch, or David wrote the Psalms, or 
John the gospel, which bears his name; to the 
one who knows that truth is truth, and only 
truth because it is truth, it is a matter of no 
moment who wrote any scriptural document. 
This is increasingly the belief of the en- 
lightened, developing the most valuable force 
witnessed in Christendom, — the measure of 
the sacred by its moral value. 

Modern investigations furnish three evi- 
dences which are profoundly influential: com- 
parative religion, evolution, and the changed 
attitude regarding the personality and cosmic 
service of Jesus. The study of comparative 
religion reveals the fact that the great religions 

[90] 



The Decay of Authority 



of the world are very similar in their origin, 
their fundamental teaching, and their influ- 
ence. Accompanied by an appreciation of the 
teachings of evolution, it is seen that these 
are all growths from similar or common inspi- 
rations ; that if the religion of the future is to 
be Christianity, it will have to be a modified 
Christianity; that the evolution, for example, 
of Judaism and Christianity are so similar as 
to be nearly identical; and that the whole his- 
tory of the world allots such a small fragment 
of time to Christian dogma and its institutions 
that our sublime theological egotism must be 
supplanted by a profounder and more in- 
spired faith in humanity and the power which 
makes for righteousness. 

We can illustrate the significance of the 
decay of authority by a very brief considera- 
tion of the personality of Jesus, on whom are 
focussed the most important of the theological 
controversies. Many orthodox people accept 
the results of criticism with regard to the Old 
Testament, but are not yet ready to apply the 
same standards to the New Testament. Yet 

[91J 



The Religion of a Democrat 

people of all degrees of theological conserva- 
tism and liberalism have had their views modi- 
fied regarding Jesus, and, consequently, about 
the church and religion. An examination of 
the historic competition between the authority 
of Jesus and that of other characters will help 
us most briefly to comprehend this changed 
attitude. 

There was a conflict in Palestine between 
the various schools of rabbis, and in the times 
of Jesus the most spiritual leader was Hillel. 
The great rabbi had his deserved following as 
did the humble carpenter. Hillel's teachings 
and those of Jesus were very similar; but the 
simplicity and democracy of Jesus, and his 
wondrous personality and martyrdom, enabled 
his influence to dominate, and led to the es- 
tablishment of the Christian church. Then 
followed the development of the Roman Cath- 
olic church, with its militant power, and in the 
course of time the church evolved the dogma 
of the divinity of Jesus. 

When Jesus became God, there arose the 
difficulty which has always been felt by the 

[92] 



The Decay of Authority 



multitude, to whom the mystical doctrine of 
the Trinity is inevitably a form of polytheism. 
This appealing human character was removed 
by the theologians so far from humanity as 
to cease to be an adequate medium of ap- 
proach to the Father, and there was naturally 
developed the intermediatory function of 
Mary, who, although "Mother of God," was 
human and approachable. Mary not only 
proved to be a satisfactory mediator, but the 
regard for her undoubtedly had a wholesome 
effect in raising the estimate of womanhood 
and motherhood. Yet it became repugnant 
to the sterner and more precise theologians of 
the Reformation, and in the reaction which 
followed we find stress laid vipon the theology 
of Paul, which restored Jesus to his mediatory 
position and made him seem less remote by 
emphasizing the beliefs through which he could 
be approached. 

The growth of free, scientific investigation 
in the nineteenth century led to the untram- 
meled and revolutionary investigations of 
Strauss and Baur, who found no sanction for 

[93] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

the inspiration of the scriptures, and so ht- 
tle confirmation in secular history of the events 
recorded in the scriptures that they were com- 
pelled to believe that the whole story of Jesus 
was a myth. It lost for them none of its 
ethical significance; it was a beautiful picture 
of the ideal life; but it had no historical com- 
plement. The benefit of these destructive 
teachings w^as soon felt in the renewed investi- 
gations into the sources of the life of Jesus, 
involving the application of the ripest scholar- 
ship of men of all views, and the restoration 
of Jesus to his place in history. 

JNIeanwhile, especially in America, there was 
a wholesome influence being exercised by the 
division betw^een the Unitarian and Trinitarian 
Congregationalists. The historic Jesus was 
opposed to the prophetic Messiah. From the 
historic Jesus (the Jesus of the gospels, not 
of the theologians), came a vast ethical in- 
fluence, far more powerful than that of the 
Messianic conception of Jesus. The life of 
Jesus became more important than his death. 
A more popular interpretation of the gos- 

[94] 



The Decay of Authority 



pels, unwilling to surrender the belief in the 
divinity of Christ, but examining with a free 
hand the authority of scriptures, is known as 
liberal orthodoxy. Recognizing that there is 
only one authoritative original document back 
of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 
and finding the gospel of John, while very 
beautiful, neither authoritative nor authentic, 
they still cling to the Trinitarian conception, 
based, however, on careful, scientific investi- 
gation. 

The net result of these inquiries and their 
spiritual consequence is an emphasis on the 
character of Jesus and his ethical teachings, 
unknown to the complacent theologians and 
their blind followers, who accept unquestion- 
ingly the old theology, without demanding its 
reflection in life. We cannot afford to lose 
the vividness and the uplift of the wonderful 
character of Jesus, and, happily, he is brought 
nearer to the multitude by the reverent but 
scientific investigations and teachings of to- 
day than by the authoritative dictum of earlier, 
unlettered theologians, whose concern was for 

[95] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

church and dogma more than for the permea- 
tion of society with Christian ethics/ The 
authority of the old theology, of the church, 
of the Christ cult (derived by Luther and 
Calvin from Paul), has waned; but the moral 
power of the unsullied life of Jesus is an in- 
creasing vital force. 

The decay of personal, economic, political, 
social, intellectual, and religious authority 
is ominous. There is the inevitable danger of 
apathy, rash scepticism, or cynicism. The 
struggle of the privileged to maintain their 
prerogatives on tottering foundations leads 
the superficial thinker to attack men of straw. 
When authority is identified wdth injustice, 
tyranny, hypocrisy and superstition, the logical 
protest is anarchy. The new authority must 
be that of the spirit, — the spirituality of com- 
radeship, of cooperation, of universal suffrage 
and direct legislation, of democratic culture 



1 Such a book as Professor Nathaniel Schmidt's " The 
Prophet of Nazareth " is typical of the way in which the 
most critical modern research may be combined with a rarely 
beautiful and inspiring spiritual picture. 

[96] 



The Decay of Authorit]i 



and democratic religion. ''We are delivered 
from the law, that being dead wherein we 
were held; that we should serve in newness 
of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter." 
''The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth hfe." 
Upon this living law w^ill be built the church 
of democracy. 



[97] 



RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 



[99] 



CHAPTER IV 

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH 

THE unconstrained faith which forgets 
orthodoxy in its moral enthusiasm, which 
finds authority not above and beyond, 
but in and about it, will not identify demo- 
cratic religion with the church of yesterday and 
to-day. The measure of both religion and mor- 
ality is social efficiency. A distinguished 
clergyman said recently in a sermon that 
gained some publicity, — ''While this is not 
the most wicked age, — while, in fact, it is the 
most moral age, — it is without doubt the most 
godless age." Is not the opposite true, that 
this is a godly but immoral age? There is 
little decline in the belief in God, but this be- 
lief, like many others, has lost its dynamic 
power. It is surely a matter of greater con- 
cern that a belief in God can be associated 

[101] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

with immorality, than that morahty is possible 
to the godless. 

The unhappy reconciliation of theological 
belief and immorality is illustrated by the beau- 
tiful sculptured frieze over the door of the 
Royal Exchange in London, bearing this leg- 
end: "The earth is the Lord's, and the ful- 
ness thereof/' One can understand the sen- 
sation which we should have at seeing that 
declaration above the door of our Stock Ex- 
change or Board of Trade; but they have be- 
come so accustomed to it in London that they 
are not shocked at the incongruity between 
the practice and the faith. Perhaps an even 
more flagrant example of this contradiction is 
found in the new capitol building at Harris- 
burg, where, in the House of Representatives, 
as one looks beyond the great candelabra (pur- 
chased by the pound at extravagant figures) 
to the sumptuously embossed gallery (con- 
tracted for by the yard and equally extrava- 
gant), one sees in raised letters, — *'Ye shall 
know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free." A great outcry has been raised against 

[102] 



Religion and the Church 



the removal of the familiar motto "In God 
we trust" from some American coins. Clergy- 
men who have never felt responsibility for un- 
holy traffic carried on by these tokens, demand 
the restoration of the hypocritical legend. Tri- 
fling with the symbols and words of religion 
and toying with sacred things is a sadder com- 
mentary on our times than any evidence of 
godless morality. 

With regard to its being godly or godless, 
a moral or an immoral, age, we cannot be- 
lieve that God is concerned; we cannot speak 
of God as vain any longer, nor can we longer 
believe, as the Old Testament teaches, that He 
is jealous; He is less moral than we try to be 
if He can be moved by such impulses. It is 
not possible to conceive of a Supreme Being 
in terms of twentieth century morality, who 
could ask more than that His creatures be 
moi'al. There is both historic and contem- 
porary evidence that performance without pro- 
fession is preferable to profession without 
performance, as in the case of the son who 
said, — "I go not," but went. 

[103] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

Politics is not the only order that ''makes 
strange bed-fellows." Statistics indicate that 
criminals are generally orthodox; this has a 
quantitative explanation in the fact that crim- 
inals naturally belong to the class of men con- 
stituting the greatest number, the class which 
takes its religious creed and its moral code 
most easily. It is also involved in the frag- 
mentary character of our lives. Religious 
faith is detached from secular life, as is re- 
ligious organization. In this respect it is no 
more peculiar than politics or industry ; so that 
the lack of harmony need not be laid exclu- 
sively at the door of either theology or ethics; 
but it is obviously more reprehensible in the 
religious world to fail to grasp the fulness of 
life. 

Morality and religion may be harmonized 
and, at the same time, reconciled with the 
other human wants, only by considering life 
as a whole. The social process consists — as 
Professor Small has most lucidly expounded ^ 



1 Albion W. Small, "General Sociology." 

[104] 



Religion and the Church 



— in the progressive satisfaction of the six 
comprehensive wants: Wealth, health, so- 
ciability, taste, knowledge, righteousness. To 
put the satisfaction of these wants within the 
reach of all is the goal of society, the function 
of the state, and by this standard we must also 
measure religion. These six wants have been 
analyzed: they must also be moralized, syn- 
thesized and democratized. Desirable as 
would be the moralizing of the various wants, 
nothing less than synthesis will satisfy, but 
the conspicuous tendency of the church to-day 
is to fall into the prevalent error of our nine- 
teenth century heritage, — ^that of overspecial- 
ization. 

As an illustration of the way in which hu- 
man interests are specialized, consider the em- 
phasis put on the economic want. Because of 
the exaggeration of its purely material as- 
pects, we cannot speak of wealth in the broad, 
human language of John Ruskin or John 
Hobson or Simon Patten, which claims "there 
is no wealth but life." The church has sel- 
dom interfered with economic processes, but 

[105] 



X 



The Religion of a Democrat 

it preaches the stewardship of wealth and de- 
mands for itself the administration of a por- 
tion, on the ground that wealth will be thus 
moralized. This is pitifully partial, and indi- 
cates, as the examination of every other want 
would, the superior potentialities of the state. 
The higher moral standards of to-day will no 
longer tolerate the conception of the classical 
economist, that some economic actions are non- 
moral. Twentieth century ethics knows no 
non-moral act. The popular philosophy of 
Mr. Benjamin Kidd, which condoned a cut- 
throat struggle for existence, on account of 
the beneficent influence of a subsequent appli- 
cation of altruism, yields to the common sense 
ethics of a democratic philosophy. 

The two opposing philosophies concerned 
with the material satisfactions are individual- 
ism and socialism: one has its resultant reli- 
gious expression in Protestantism, the other 
in materialism. Protestantism came into Eu- 
rope at the time of the development of the 
world-market, and has expanded with the 
growth of industry. It has been idejitified 

[106] 



Religion and the Church 



with the nations of western Europe and Amer- 
ica which have stood in the front of the move- 
ments of commerce and which have been 
earhest witnesses of the industrial revolution. 
Protestantism has been easily reconciled to 
the doctrines of the struggle for existence, the 
survival of the fittest and competition. It 
has been itself an individualizing, disintegrat- 
ing influence. In the process of disintegra- 
tion it has done what in Nature is well done. 
We do not always want cohesion, we must 
occasionally have a disintegrating force, and 
in securing the right of private judgment and 
protesting against the undue compulsion and 
conformity of the church. Protestantism has 
performed valuable services. Nevertheless, it 
has thereby given sanction to some of the most 
destructive forces of industry. So harmon- 
ious has Protestantism found its beliefs with 
those of contemporary industry that it has been 
entirely ineffectual in combating industrial 
evils. On the contrary, by its dependence on 
voluntary financial support, it has come largely 
under the control of men who direct the affairs 

[107] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

of business and whose philosophy of hfe is 
determined chiefly by pecuniary motives. It 
has also undermined the broad, mediaeval cath- 
olicity of the historic church, the special haven 
of the poor and oppressed. 

At the other end of the scale, socialism, with 
its protest against individualism, has found 
much of its support in the philosophy of ma- 
terialism. As a scheme of social reconstruc- 
tion, primarily designed to secure economic 
justice, from which the satisfaction of all 
other wants is expected to result, it has nec- 
essarily concerned itself almost exclusively 
with the economic want. The justification 
for placing socialism with religious move- 
ments, is found in the tremendous moral zeal 
which accompanies the possession of this faith, 
and which opposes the fundamental principles 
of protestant individualism. The materialis- 
tic interpretation of history furnishes a phi- 
losophy of life, and the socialistic ideal de- 
duced from it is both a prophetic and an 
evangelizing force. Its function is as obvious 
as that of the Protestant Reformation, but 

[108] 



Religion and the Church 



its obsession with economic functions is as 
great a limitation as the dependence of Pro- 
testantism on industrial competition. 

Physiological satisfactions have also found 
their expression in religious organizations. 
Sensualism has characterized not only such a 
great religion as Mohammedanism, but such a 
Christian off -shoot as Mormonism. Mormons 
may be as free from the sensual element of 
their religion as many Mohammedans are; 
polygamy may be abhorrent to them, but the 
original differentiation came from an exag- 
geration of the sensual, A more refined, but 
equally specialized, emphasis of the physiolog- 
ical is found in that modern form of Epicu- 
reanism, Christian Science. Christian Scien- 
tists are normally no more sensual than worthy 
Epicureans, of whom it could not have been 
said that "their god is their belly"; but the in- 
evitable result of focussing the attention on 
the body, even when it involves the denial of 
bodily ailments, is to give to physical welfare 
an inordinate amount of attention. There are 
broad-minded people in the Christian Science 

[109] 



TJie Religion of a Democrat 

churches; there are very kindly people, and 
socially disposed people; their positive con- 
tribution is found in the denial of the time- 
honored conception that virtue is inevitably as- 
sociated with pain; but their complacent, per- 
sonal satisfaction with health, physical or 
spiritual, interferes with social service and so- 
cial organizaton. Christian Science opposes 
by its cheerful inertia the aggressive move- 
ments toward the unity of society. 

The satisfaction of the social want has its 
most important exposition in the state, but 
second only to this are the social emphasis and 
(exaggeration which come from the great Cath- 
olic churches, — Roman, English, and Greek. 
The danger of making the form of organiza- 
tion more important than the content is fa- 
miliar to Americans in the obstructive force 
of their written constitutions and charters. 
It is a common American fallacy to expect 
automatic government through the perfection 
of political mechanism, until the citizen exists 
for government, and not government for the 
citizen. The same exaggeration of social or- 

[110] 



Religion and the Church 



ganization, in this case, the hierarchy, op- 
presses the Roman CathoKc church. The in- 
f alHbihty of the Pope, Hke the infaUibihty of 
the Czar, is an anachronism, in an age of in- 
creasing democracy; but the parochial organ- 
ization of Cathohcism is a beneficent result of 
the evolutionary process, and testifies to the 
value of systematic organization. It is not 
impossible to anticipate the reconstruction of 
the Catholic churches on the basis of democ- 
racy, after the manner of the origin of repre- 
sentative government on the ruins of the feudal 
system. 

However, two of the obvious flaws of this 
over-systematized system are the inevitable 
repression of freedom of thought and the un- 
happy device of celibacy. The limitations put 
upon the freedom of thought in any given time 
are perpetuated by the prevention of the physi- 
cal inheritance of much of the best talent of 
the Catholic population. The flower of its 
manhood has no seed, because it remains celi- 
bate. In the face of these handicaps, the in- 
sidious influence of progressive ideas is a most 

[111] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

hopeful sign. When a peasant Pope can con- 
demn such pregnant truths as fall under the 
ban of the Encyclical on Modernism, the 
thoughtful onlooker has raised for his con- 
sideration two queries: if such criticism is at 
work within the church, in spite of all the re- 
pressive influence of its huge organization, 
how long can that powerful structure with- 
stand the assaults on its foundation, and, sec- 
ondly, if the mandate of a Pope can establish 
the authority of current ideas, what may not 
a progressive Pope accomplish by lending the 
power of his infallibility to the dissemination 
of such doctrines as are contained in the fol- 
lowing statements of Catholics, condemned by 
Pope Pius X: — 

Christ had not the intention of constituting the church 
as a society to endure on earth through successive cen- 
turies; on the contrary, He believed that the kingdom 
of heaven would come at the end of the world which 
was then imminent. 

The organic constitution of the church is not immu- 
table. On the contrary. Christian society, like human 
society, is subject to perpetual evolution. 

The dogmas, the sacraments, the hierarchy, in their 

[112] 



Religion and the Church 



conception^ as well as in their existence, are only the 
interpretation of the Christian thought and of the evo- 
lution which by external additions have developed and 
perfected the germ that lay hidden in the gospel. 

Simon Peter never suspected that the primacy in 
the church had been conferred upon him by Christ. 

The Roman Church became the head of all churches, 
not by divine ordinance, but by purely political circum- 
stances. 

The church has shown herself to be an enemy of 
natural and theological sciences. 

Truth is no more immutable than man himself, with 
whom, and in whom, and through whom, it changes 
perpetually. 

Christ did not teach a fixed determined body of doc- 
trine, applicable to all times and to all men. But 
rather. He started a religious movement, adapted or 
capable of being adapted to different times and places. 

The church has shown herself incapable of effectively 
defending ethical gospel^ because she obstinately is at- 
tached to immutable doctrines which are incompatible 
with modern progress. 

The specialization of the sesthetic want is 
found in such diverse expressions as the Salva- 
tion Army and the Ritualistic movement. 
While there is an appeal to a different qual- 
ity of taste in these two religious movements, 

[113] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

there is in each case an emphasis of the sen- 
suous. The jarring note of the tambourine, 
Hke the dehcate aroma of incense, makes no de- 
mand on the intellect, but stirs the senses. 
The appeal may be entirely legitimate when 
coordinated with the satisfaction of the other 
wants, but it is likely to lead to such extremes 
as we have seen in the excessive crudities of 
the Salvation Army and the ultra refinements 
of Ritualism. 

The defect of overspecialization character- 
izes those movements which have exaggerated 
the intellectual want. Knowledge is power, 
and with the popularization of science in the 
nineteenth century people have tried to save 
their souls by it, the result being secularism 
and rationalism. During the middle decades 
of the nineteenth century, and to a less degree 
subsequently, especially in England, organ- 
izations multiplied, based upon the expecta- 
tion that exact science would afford a sufficient 
philosophy of life. There is still a great in- 
ternational, free thought movement whose de- 
structive services are invaluable. Its weak- 

[114] 



Religion and the Church 



ness is not the one commonly attributed to it, 
of undermining the foundations of faith, but 
rather of building upon a new basis of insuffi- 
cient breadth through the exaggeration of 
knowledge. 

Rationalism has been a kindred force, not 
necessarily denying the divine or supernatural, 
but escaping from the authority of revelation 
and inspiration. The latest form of this is in 
the growing contemporary New Thought 
movement, whose adherents believe in the con- 
quering power of mind. Without any au- 
thoritative sanction such as the Christian 
Scientists find in the miracles of Jesus, the 
New Thought advocates nevertheless believe 
in what agnostic psychologists would call mi- 
raculous transformations, to be effected by 
the power of the trained mind. It is idle to 
deny the abundant evidence of the increasing 
value of these principles, but they suffer from 
the same flaw, — over-emphasis of a single one 
of the essentials of human satisfaction. 

It may seem hj^percritical to quarrel with 
those who make righteousness the end of their 

[115] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

religious organizations; but, unhappily, we 
find that such single-mindedness of purpose, 
however lofty, may limit the appreciation of 
the wholeness of human life. Among the 
most earnest and valued exponents of spon- 
taneous morality are the Quakers, yet the fine 
spiritual quality of their interpretation of re- 
ligion cannot conceal the fact that it has proved 
itself ineffective. The Society of Friends 
does not arrive ; it does not affect society as it 
should. It has been quite frequently asso- 
ciated with a devotion to business, inconsistent 
with good politics and good society, notably 
so in the Quaker City. 

The tendency to exaggerate individual 
righteousness is found also in that sort of 
Christian faith expressed by the word "Tol- 
stoyan," — the belief in non-resistance and as- 
ceticism. It is among the most wholesome of 
all the protests against the complexity of mod- 
ern civilization and the timidity of organized 
Christianity, and is ineffective chiefly because 
its followers do not comprehend life as a 
whole. It is unequal to the expression of a 

[116] 



Religion and the Church 



universal religion. The truly religious must 
at least be in the world, if not of it, and while 
there is no taint of self -righteousness about 
the followers of Tolstoy, such as that asso- 
ciated with those whom the Scot calls the 
*'unco' guid," there is an abstraction and an 
aloofness, intrinsically admirable but socially 
unsatisfying. 

The church has failed as the organizer and 
defender of religion. It is dominated too 
often by some single human interest. It is 
too worldly to let rehgion expand, and too 
unworldly to give humanity a chance. It is 
sensitive to the limitations of every age, while 
lacking the freedom to rise to the new pos- 
sibilities. When it moralizes human wants, 
it is with conventional morality; when it 
specializes them it is to curtail its suspecti- 
bility to the universal forces of the time. It 
is serviceable in conserving or reviving various 
wants while inadequate to their synthesis. 
Religion must reach into the recesses of the 
remotest human interests, but the church has 
not been big enough to comprehend them alL 

[117] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

We are confronted by the difficulty of a 
national church and the need of a national or- 
ganization of religion. It is no more incon- 
gruous to have a national organization of un- 
iversal religion than to have a national organi- 
zation of humanitarianism. Patriotism is in 
inverse ratio to sect and to party. Patriotism 
is the expression of our loyalty to the largest 
group of human beings we can comprehend, as 
Mazzini has taught us. There can no longer be 
a national religion, but there may be a national 
faith as a condition of a universal faith, which 
shall at least be larger than any of the integral 
elements in the country itself; in the church; 
in industry; in politics; or any other frag- 
ment of social life. 

There is a common faith of the whole peo- 
ple; it may not be tangible, it may not have 
been capable of expression in creeds, without 
producing schism and sect; but it can be con- 
ceived, and it is in need of organization. The 
state must be supreme; the church must be 
subordinate; and religion can only be free in 
the state. Our minds have been so befogged 

pl8] 



Religion and the Church 



by the conflict between church and state that 
we have grown unable to see the harmony of 
rehgion and society. When it is recognized 
that every individual must have his own re- 
ligion, regardless of the ecclesiastical author- 
ity to which he may hold allegiance, then it 
will be seen that only the state can facilitate 
this. 

The conflict between state and church in 
France seems to throw light upon our problem. 
The state is trying to assert its supremacy over 
the church; the church, so far as it is conscien- 
tious in its activities, argues that it is universal 
and therefore superior to the state. If it were, 
if they had such a national church, if it could 
make its claims to universalism good, would it 
not be loyal to the interests of society as a 
whole, and how can society as a whole be served 
except through the state? The present organ- 
ization of the state may be as imperfect as 
the present organization of the church, but the 
state is the onlj^ organization which represents 
society. The church is the very imperfect, 
highly specialized ors^anization of one of so- 

fn9] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

ciety's functions, and if it actually moralized 
all human wants, it could still serve society 
fully only as an instrumentality of \ht state. 

That the church has sometimes seemed su- 
perior to the state only means that church- 
men have sometimes been superior to states- 
men in their capacity for understanding the 
interests of society as a whole. The transi- 
tion through which France is passing gives 
promise of a great spiritualizing force, in 
consequence, on the one hand, of the state's 
having won its supremacy as the best organi- 
zation that human beings have as yet been 
able to find to protect their common interests, 
and, on the other hand, by the endeavor of 
the church to prove its worth as the exponent 
of the religion of the people, rather than the 
politics of the ecclesiastics. 

We have the same problem here in relation 
to church and state. We declare by our Con- 
stitution that citizens shall be free from any 
special religious influence. We began our na- 
tional life when it was more easy to distin- 
guish, but if religion becomes universal, and 

[120] 



Religion and the Church 



the antithesis to the secular disappears, we do 
not need to make these hmitations. At pres- 
ent we are in the unhappy state where those 
who would like to see a better knowledge of 
the Bible by our American citizens generally, 
are nevertheless unable to assent to the idea 
that it should be taught in the public schools. 
Every one must deprecate the lack of interest 
in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. It is 
a grievous gap in our intellectual and moral 
equipment ; but so long as belief in the inspira- 
tion of the scriptures gives people divine sanc- 
tion for their differences of interpretation, it 
becomes an infringement of democratic liber- 
ties to give the state's support to the common 
study of the Bible. 

In spite of this dilemma, which has been so 
uncompromisingly^ met by the Constitution, in 
many of the states religious exercises are con- 
ducted 3aily in the schools. A person of re- 
ligious sensibilities cannot, without being of- 
fended, attend a school and hear the Bible read 
perfunctorily, by the teacher who has this 
onerous duty for the day, to an uninterested 

[121] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

and irreverent group of children. When this 
is followed by a labored, extempore prayer, 
— the least objectionable response to which is 
boredom — the oif ense becomes sacrilege. In 
violation of the principle that every one shall 
have free expression of his own religious con- 
victions, we open our legislative assemblies and 
political conventions with prayer, — a pecul- 
iarly disheartening practice, when one appre- 
ciates that the only persons distressed are prob- 
ably those with conscientious scruples and 
those who are impatient to proceed with their 
unrighteous plans which are momentarily de- 
layed by this hypocritical procedure. 

There is no objection to any devout person's 
praying for the legislators and administrators 
of the state. There is no objection to the use 
of the property of the state for such pur- 
poses, provided it does not infringe upon the 
equal rights of other citizens. When, how- 
ever, a prayer in the Oklahoma legislature 
that a certain candidate may be the next Pres- 
ident of the United States is greeted with ap- 
pl^u^e hj the Democratic members, it implies 

[122] 



Religion and the Church 



that those whose sentiments are not expressed 
have either their poHtical or their rehgious 
rights violated. 

There ought to be no opposition to the use 
of the pubHc school for the teaching of the 
Bible, provided it is not a part of the school 
curriculum and is permitted to every group 
of people who wish to give such instruction 
outside of school hours. It is deplorable that 
the instruction might be given by dogmatists 
and sectarians instead of by a trained teacher 
in hterature ; but that must be the solution un- 
til the belief in the inspiration of the scrip- 
tures shall cease to divide people into sects. 
Meanwhile, it would be much better to have 
this public form of instruction subject to re- 
view at the bar of public opinion, than to 
leave biblical and other ethical instruction to 
the incompetents who are the majority of the 
staff of any average Sunday school. 

In America, where the state church is 
scorned, and religion and politics are supposed 
to be divorced, there is, however, the exemp- 
tion of ecclesiastical property from taxation, 

[123] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

This violates the equal rights of citizens by in- 
volving the greater taxation of others who 
do not believe in the ministrations of these 
churches. It is more practicable for the state 
to provide edifices for common worship, or for 
the consecutive service of different bodies of 
religionists, so that all maj;^ have use of public 
property w^ithout discrimination, than to ex- 
empt sectarian church property. If people 
will have private churches, they should be per- 
mitted to do so and to pay for them; but if 
they will worship in common, or in a common 
building, as often occurs in Switzerland, it 
may promote universal religious fellowship. 
The field houses of the Chicago small parks 
may be used, so the authorities declare, for all 
worthy public purposes which are not political 
or religious. A great advance is shown in the 
frequent use of the English town halls for all 
public purposes without distinction, so long 
as there is no discrimination. The promotion 
of universal religion by the nation may be fur- 
thered at least by the public provision of places 
of worship and religious instruction for all 

[124] 



Religion and the Church 



who are willing thus to recognize the suprem- 
acy of the state, without insisting on special 
privileges from the state for the private w^or- 
ship of their private God in their private 
meeting house. 

The inevitable difficulty which will be per- 
ennially encountered with those who cannot 
make a universal interpretation of religion may 
be illustrated by the protest made in New 
York City and elsewhere against the observ- 
ance of Christmas in the public schools. The 
arguments which have been used against the 
reading of even selected passages from the 
Bible, in the schools attended by Protestants, 
Catholics, Jews and others, do not seem to 
hold with equal force against the observance 
of Christmas. If songs expressive of the 
miraculous and supernatural are eliminated, 
which should of course be done out of defer- 
ence to the varying faiths, the most orthodox 
Jew cannot find fault with the celebration of 
the anniversary of the birth of the most im- 
portant individual in western civilization. 
The fact that the festival coincides with a Jew- 

[125] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

ish celebration, and is only the historic suc- 
cessor of a great pagan institution, need not 
detract from its widely accepted significance 
as a day of "peace and good will among men." 
This protest in New York against Christ- 
mas exercises in the public schools and the 
almost contemporaneous discussion in Chicago 
on the literary use of selected passages of 
the Bible point to the most significant weak- 
ness of the church as the custodian of religion. 
In the city with the largest Jewish popula- 
tion in the world, a very imposing protest was 
made against the Christmas celebration, only 
to be over-ruled by the spontaneous expres- 
sion from organized Christianity and else- 
where, and a prompt decision to retain the 
Christmas exercises. In Chicago, on the con- 
trary, where a very sober and harmonious de- 
mand had come for the use of passages from 
the Bible, approved by Catholics, Protestants, 
and Jews, public opinion again made the de- 
cision for the school board, this time adversely. 
In each case the extent of popular disapproval 
was quite unexpected. Greater reliance can 

[126] 



Religion and the Church 



be placed upon the good common sense of the 
people than upon the demands of theologians, 
or even the judgment of pedagogues. In 
neither case is the decision necessarily final; 
but in both, one must see the tremendous sig- 
nificance of drawing from the great heart and 
common sense of the multitude, the dynamic 
of faith. 

A national organization of religion, like the 
national faith, will pass beyond the scope of 
the church or churches. The church of the 
republic will know neither Jew nor Gentile, 
Greek nor Barbarian, bond nor free, because 
its raison d'etre will not be that of external 
authority, historic orthodoxy, or the aggre- 
gate of temperamental faiths, but the will 
of the people, inspired by the moral impulse 
of collective effort in the state. ^ 



1 Coit, " National Idealism and a State Church.'* 



[127] 



RELIGION AND THE STATE 



[129] 



CHAPTER V 

RELIGION AND THE STATE 

4 4r I iHE greatest good of the greatest 
I number" satisfied the utihtarian dem- 
ocrats of the nineteenth century, but 
the twentieth century conception of democracy 
demands the greatest good of all, which can 
be attained only through the state. The 
tragedy of civilization is the fragmentary char- 
acter of contemporary life. Unity is sel- 
dom visualized, never realized. The exag- 
geration and overspecialization of human 
wants cause the inadequacy of state churches 
and sectarian religion. This overspecializa- 
tion, which is being steadily intensified by 
modern industry, cuts even deeper. The in- 
terests of life are considered exclusively in 
isolated departments. The state is divorced 
from industry, the state is divorced from re- 

[131] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

ligion, and religion is divorced from industry. 
The philosophy of industrialism regards the 
state as superfluous, or a nuisance, except 
when it furtively seeks its assistance. Its 
shibboleth is ''The best government is that 
which governs least." The triumph of eco- 
nomic efficiency in the capitalistic system 
over hereditary authority (formerly identified 
with the state), delays the recognition of so- 
cial authority founded on social utility. Sim- 
ilarly, religion has regarded the state as 
wicked, the representative of the secular and 
the carnal. The antagonism of both religion 
and industry to the state may have proceeded 
originally from the desire for freedom; but 
having been emancipated, the feeling is nur- 
tured by the benefits enjoyed through special 
privileges. There is a like antithesis between 
religion and industry. Religion is kept in its 
restricted sphere for use when needed, the in- 
terference with industrial methods being re- 
duced to a minimum. It is true that industry 
is generally progressive, and the institutions 
of religion are conservative or reactionary; 

[132] 



Religion and the State 



but that is because industry is subject to the 
pressure of the forces of nature, the growth 
of population and the discovery of new re- 
sources, while organized religion is re- 
strained by its pecuniary needs from inter- 
fering too seriously with the methods of the 
economic world. 

The unity of life is not only unappreciated, 
it is denied by the segregation of these es- 
sential elements. If there is lack of harmony 
between the state and industry, or if there is 
opposition betw^een the state and religion, or 
if the doctrines of religion are not reconciled 
with the methods of industry, there must be 
waste, — economic, social, moral. The larger 
life of the whole people suffers through each 
one of these great human interests' being 
weakened by having attention focussed too 
largely on its peculiar specialism. As Cole- 
ridge says, "he who begins by loving Chris- 
tianity more than truth, will continue by lov- 
ing the church more than Christianity, and 
end by loving himself more than all." 

Every one of these forces grows wan and 
[133] 



The Religion of a ^Democrat 

anaemic because it tries to sustain life on an 
upper exclusive level, withdrawn from the 
source of social life, the great common heart 
of the people. The state does not spring from 
the life of the politician; the church does not 
spring from the life of the clergy; the moral 
force of statesmen and ecclesiastics withers 
when they become unrepresentative. The 
politician, the priest, the industrialist is needed 
only to voice the common thought, as the lex- 
icographer records the conmion tongue. 
Speech may be modified, refined and author- 
ized by the cultivated, but it originates with 
the masses. 

Appljdng these principles to the problem of 
religion and the state, w^e observe that the 
church is concerned for the soul, but the state 
is concerned for the whole human being. 
This distinction is not always obvious, be- 
cause the state, kept by the restraint of the 
economic system from expressing its func- 
tions, has been at times overshadoAved by 
churchmen who expanded the boundaries of 
the church. The state has been caught be- 

[134] 



Religion and the State 



tween the upj)er and the nether millstone of 
the politician and the industrialist, and has 
been exploited by both. It has too often been 
limited practically to the care of the abnormal, 
on the supposition that free industry permits 
the normal man, woman or child to care for 
himself. The care of the abnormal has fur- 
nished the politician with patronage; the neg- 
lect of the nearly normal has provided the 
industrialist with surplus labor; while the 
church leaves the system unchanged to pursue 
its specialized function of the care of souls. 
The church cries out against intemperance 
and sexual immorality, the clergy lead revivals 
and make raids against saloons, brothels and 
gambling houses, the pulpit preaches a sys- 
tem of eternal rewards and punishments for 
the obvious personal sins; but the complicated 
system of modern society, the elaborate organ- 
ization of the state, and the richness of human 
life remain misunderstood. Even if the church 
moralize all these human wants, as it has hither- 
to failed to do, their synthesis and democratiza- 
tion can be accomplished only by the state. 

[135] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

It is not surprising that the vision of the 
possibihties of the state is imperfect when one 
sees the jealousy of the church and of indus- 
try. Each uses the state for its own con- 
venience, but tries to keep the state's functions 
negative. The big business man shamelessly 
asks for tariff protection, subsidies, or rebates ; 
the churchman, for the exemption of eccles- 
iastical property from taxation and the endow^- 
ment of his schools. 

Whatever the imperfections of contempor- 
ary life, it must not be forgotten that the 
state is organized society, and that its weak- 
nesses are due to the delegation of some of its 
functions to uncoordinated institutions. There 
can be no moral stability until it is recognized 
that the individual is sovereign, not subject. 
Industry lacks efficiency, the church lacks 
spirituality, and the state lacks solidarity, when 
the individual is not sovereign. He must be 
master of his occupation, of his faith, and of 
his citizenship, or these are empty names. In 
a deep and real sense, democracy is the only 

[136] 



Religion and the State 



morality, but democracy must mean the sov- 
ereignty of the people in all human relation- 
ships. 

The state must synthesize and democratize 
all human wants. Lincoln's popular phrase 
''government of the people, by the people, for 
the people" describes only political democ- 
racy, which cannot stand alone. Carlyle was 
right in saying, 'Svith the fullest winning of 
[political] democracy, there is nothing won but 
the free chance to win." Another great frag- 
ment of democracy was described by William 
Morris as an art "made by the people and for 
the people, a joy to the maker and the user." 
With the social and artistic interests included 
in the conception of democracy, there is still 
needed a democratic statement of the eco- 
nomic, physical, intellectual and moral wants 
of man. Democracy means nothing less than 
the life of all, by the cooperation of all, for 
the wxlfare of all. Carlyle said, "That any 
man with the capacity for knowledge should 
die ignorant is a tragedy." Is it not then a 

[137] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

crime that any man with the capacity for 
taste, righteousness, sociabiHty, wealth and 
health, should die with these unattained? 

The fulness of life can only be secured 
through the state. Imperfect as the state now 
is, it is no further from the goal than the prev- 
alent conception of life. The fulness of life, 
involving the satisfaction of all kinds of wants 
for all human beings, will make possible the 
social state. Expressed conversely, — which 
the critical attitude of to-day compels, — the 
state is responsible for poverty, disease, dis- 
franchisement, ugliness, ignorance, and im- 
morality. These are all social evils, and can 
only be cured by social remedies. There can 
be no genuine religion which does not take 
cognizance of these, no state worthy of the 
name which endures these, but the church is 
helpless to combat them, and the religion 
which comprehends the fulness of life must 
work through the state. 

The demand that the state must synthesize 
and democratize all human wants will follow 
from the justification of the indictment. The 

[138] 



Religion and the State 



state is responsible for poverty. Without at- 
tempting to minimize individual responsibilitj^ 
society must be charged with waste of mate- 
rial resources, human talent and life. It has 
permitted the destruction of its forests, the 
waste and pollution of its waters, with the con- 
sequent decrease in the productivity of the 
soil, and the devastating floods over the land 
and in the cities. Society has neglected to 
conserve the richness of the soil, or to deter- 
mine the ownership of it with a view to its 
best cultivation. Society permits landlordism 
to enervate the farmer in the rural districts 
and to destroy the initiative of the dweller in 
the city. Society permits surplus labor to re- 
main unemployed, and then sustains by its 
charities the parasitic industries which thrive 
by beating down the standard of living. None 
of these evils is within the control of the in- 
dividual; the state alone can regulate the just 
distribution of wealth and the preservation of 
the standard of living. 

The state is also responsible for disease. 
It has recognized this in legislation requiring 

[139] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

vaccination, in sporadic efforts to prevent the 
pollution of water and the infection of milk, 
in food and health laws, and in the provision 
of hospitals and other curative agencies. It 
is also responsible for the menace to life which 
lurks in tenements, the fate which overtakes 
the new-born and the unborn, the awful an- 
nual toll of deaths by violence and accident, 
— in the mines, on the railways, by the car- 
rying or possession of weapons, by the insuffi- 
cient protection of public places, and even by 
the celebration of the independence of the na- 
tion on the Fourth of July. The individual 
is again helpless, and only organized society 
can protect him. 

The state must be held responsible for the 
political and social disabilities of the citizen. If 
he is ignorant, the state should educate him; if 
he is corrupt, the state should discipline him; 
if color or sex is a handicap, the state should 
prevent discrimination. Instead of allowing 
its citizens to be disfranchised by political or 
economic masters, by sexual, racial, or intel- 
lectual superiors, it should permit the widest 

[140] 



Religion and the State 



suffrage, and allow the citizen to disfranchise 
himself, if he will, by the inefficient use of a 
voting machine. No man can be trusted to 
dispense the suffrage to others. The state 
must be impersonal in the treatment of its 
citizens and thus assail the strongholds of priv- 
ilege in the name of a genuine democracy. 

The state is responsible also for ugliness. 
The destruction of the beauties of nature, the 
disfigurement of the natural features of the 
cities, the bad planning, the deficient open 
spaces, the smoke and dirt, the unscientific 
building lines and inartistic sky lines, the in- 
accessibility of art, often the uncomeliness of 
the individual's face and figure, — marred by 
preventible prenatal or postnatal neglect — are 
within the power of correction by public reg- 
ulation. 

Similarly, the state can be held accountable 
for ignorance. When a legalized system of 
popular education tolerates six millions of 
illiterates (of whom two millions are native 
white people) as is the case in this country; 
when the statistical school age is from six to 

[141] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

twenty, and most children leave school at 
twelve or thirteen; when the admirably 
equipped high schools and universities are at- 
tended by a small fraction of the population, 
while the majority are too early condemned 
to the stunting effects of exhausting or mo- 
notonous labor, the state cannot shift the re- 
sponsibilty to the individual. 

It must also bear the burdens of immorality. 
In the cities, institutions of vice are winked 
at; in the country the population is allowed 
to take the law into its own hands; both city 
and country are bewildered by a multitude of 
unenforced, useless laws. The vast majority 
of murderers escape discipline altogether. 
Crimes against property usually receive pun- 
ishment proportioned to the weakness of the 
offender. The newspapers and the stage 
flaunt immoralitj^ while government impo- 
tently falls back upon unrepresented and un- 
expressed public opinion. 

The struggle for the synthesis of human 
wants, in the name of the people, will at first 
take the form of rescuing from the economic 

[142] 



Religion and the State 



institutions the control of wealth, health and 
sociability; from the ecclesiastical institutions, 
the control of taste, knowledge and righteous- 
ness. As we noticed in the discussion of the 
church and religion, the former group of hu- 
man wants is not without expression through 
the church, and the latter group is not with- 
out regulation by industry. The beginning 
of the realization of the fulness of life through 
the new social state will consist in the strug- 
gle to give the state larger authority over all 
these wants, relieving business of its growing 
dominion over wealth, health and sociability, 
and the church of its potent influence in taste, 
knowledge and righteousness. 

We can merely mention the inevitable strug- 
gle of the state and industry, confining our 
discussion to the relation of the state and re- 
ligion, which may be sufficiently expressed by 
considering the three so-called higher w^ants. 
The bad art of to-day is largely commercial, 
but it is made possible by the acquiescence of 
the church in a degradation of the standards 
which were universally upheld in the Middle 

[143] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

Ages. The church has also contributed by its 
prudery and puritanism to the discourage- 
ment of the nude in sculpture and painting, 
to the boycott of the theatre, and to the en- 
deavor to make art inaccessible to the people 
on the one day when they might enjoy it. 

The function of the state in restoring art to 
the people will appear with the universal open- 
ing of libraries, museums, art galleries and mu- 
sic halls on Sunday, and the provision of a 
municipal theatre, with special consideration 
given to the presentation of superior dramas 
and operas on Sunday. The dominance of an- 
cient, ecclesiastical ideas, instead of modern 
social ones (as witnessed in New York in the 
reaction against the enforcement of the Blue 
Laws), leads only to the most unsatisfactory 
and compromising modification of the char- 
acter of Sunday performances. A logical, 
moral and progressive regulation would be 
to limit all theatrical managers to a six days' 
week. Economic pressure would then close 
the theatre on Monday as is commonly done in 
Europe, and give the people their Sunday 

[144] 



Religion and the State 



amusement without interfering with a daj^ of 
rest for the actors and employes. The state 
alone can enforce one rest day in seven; and 
while it is desirable that so far as possible 
people generally observe the same day of rest, 
for purposes of either recreation or worship, 
it is only possible to make the law all-inclusive 
by letting it be elastic. 

In the same way, the state must officially 
enlarge the scope of the public school, without 
regard to the jealousy of private institutions, 
educational or ecclesiastical. The public 
school house must be used, not only in the 
evening, but on Sunday. As Dr. Stanton 
Coit points out,^ the hours when the masses 
of the people, because of rest and leisure, are 
most susceptible to higher influences are Sun- 
day morning and afternoon. The church 
does not reach most of them on Sunday morn- 
ing, except at hours which would not inter- 
fere with the further use of the school-house. 
The spiritualizing impulse which would come 



1" Ethical Democracy." 

[145] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

from the opening of the school buildings for 
all worthy public purposes is entirely com- 
parable to the combined moral influence ex- 
ercised to-day by all churches. 

This movement would carry us into the sat- 
isfaction of the moral want as well. The mass 
of people are sufl*ering to-day from spiritual 
pauperism, because they are unable to support 
the churches which provide their religious min- 
istrations. If they could have moral instruc- 
tion in the schools on Sunday, and other days 
at the expense of the state, it would in no way 
interfere with the privilege of some people to 
worship privately and independently; but it 
would insure moral guidance for all. Democ- 
ratize morality; democratize knowledge; de- 
mocratize taste, — and secure the synthesis of 
these, reconciling the sacred and the secular, by 
democratizing Sunday! ''The sabbath was 
made for man, and not man for the sabbath." 
There is no tyranny and no monoply in this; 
there will be no churches closed, except for lack 
of patronage; but they will not be supported 
(through exemption from taxation) by their 

[146] 



Religion and the State 



non-attendants. All doctrines may be 
preached in the church, or on the street, but 
none can lack a spiritual home where beauty, 
culture and morality may be united. 

Is the synthesis of human wants an academic 
hypothesis, is the larger democracy Utopian, 
must the state remain political and inconse- 
quential? The nineteenth century answers by 
both philosophy and movements of great sig- 
nificance in the furthering of the higher life 
of organized society. A study of their ten- 
dencies points unmistakably to the social state 
as distinguished from the police state. The 
revolt against eighteenth century formalism 
and conventionality was expressed in the rami- 
fications of the romantic movement. The ro- 
mantic movement included the reaction against 
pietism in the Methodist revival of the eight- 
eenth century, and the ritualistic movement of 
the nineteenth; it included also the Gothic re- 
rival, with its protest against the formal, un- 
enthusiastic, pseudo-classic art, and with its 
constructive social philosophies of Walter 
Scott, Pugin and Ruskin; it included the "re- 

[147] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

turn to nature" of Rousseau, the destructive 
criticisms of Voltaire; the ''illumination" in 
Germany, and the fertilizing forces of Goethe, 
Kant and Hegel; and, not least, included the 
political revolutions in America and France 
and the industrial revolution in Great Britain. 

After this creative ferment, it was logical 
that the nineteenth century should witness con- 
structive agencies laying new foundations on 
the ground cleared of ancient formulas, dog- 
mas, and shibboleths. Among these agencies, 
perhaps the most significant are non-theolog- 
ical ethics, evolution and sociology. 

Theology dies hard, but periodically robbed 
of some of its authority, it then readjusts it- 
self to the changed limitations with renewed 
vitality. The greatest advances in modern 
times in theological speculation and biblical 
criticism are due to theology's being shorn 
of its assumed dominion over morality. A 
greater social gain, however, is the emancipa- 
tion of ethics. The harmony of ethical sys- 
tems is incomplete, but the service of ethics is 
vastly enriched by the substitution of social 

[148] 



Religion and the State 



utility for theological sanction. A new social 
dynamic is found in the conception that man's 
chief activities are to be devoted to the im- 
provement of this world rather than the pre- 
paration for another. A corollary, satisfac- 
tory even to the theologian, is that life in any 
world is determined only by service in this. 
Thus far is non-theological ethics triumphant 
over historic theologies. 

The interpretative value of the doctrine of 
organic evolution is equally important to the 
furtherance of the interests of the higher life. 
The modern point of view, illuminated by the 
study of human origins and processes, furn- 
ishes the key to social responsibility by the ap- 
plication of the laws of development. As 
Drummond says, "Man must now take charge 
of evolution, even as hitherto he has been the 
one charge of it." Thrown by non-theological 
ethics upon his own resources, he finds in the 
teachings of evolution a safer guide than in 
the spasmodic creations and inspirations of the 
old cosmogony. He finds in natural, sexual, 
and artificial selection the means of not only 

[149] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

transforming social institutions, but human 
nature itself, in defiance of the ancient, ener- 
vating doctrine that the frailty of human na- 
ture and original sin are immutable. The in- 
evitable consequence of the revelations of or- 
ganic evolution was the birth of sociology. 

Sociology suffers not only from the spon- 
taneous protest of those to whom doctrines of 
social transformation are repugnant, because 
inconvenient, but also from the deliberate op- 
position of the pseudo-scientist, trained in the 
intellectual atmosphere of theological and pre- 
evolutionary philosophies. To these must be 
added the handicap of its exponents, who 
often utilize it for half-baked projects of so- 
cial reform, dictated by enthusiastic but un- 
trained minds, or who obscure the social value 
by a labored scrupulousness to be more exact 
than a science of human wants and motives 
ever can be. There is too frequent justifica- 
tion for the definition paraphrased from a fa- 
mous description of metaphysics, which de- 
clares sociology to be "the science of telling 
people the things they already know in ways 

[150] 



Religion and the State 



which they cannot understand." Neverthe- 
less, non-theological ethics and evolution make 
the science of the satisfaction of human wants 
inevitable. As its conclusions become founded 
in wide research, it will cease to be speculative 
or controversial and become constructive and 
dynamic. These products of nineteenth cen- 
tury thought incorporated the moral ideal in 
sundry ethical movements, of which the most 
representative are positivism, ethical culture, 
and socialism. 

Every extension of the intellectual horizon 
is fertile in new religious movements. The 
emotional temperaments are caught by soul- 
satisfying sects, like Methodism, Swedenborg- 
ianism, the Salvation Army, or Christian Sci- 
ence; while the exaggeration of rationalism 
produces secularism and new thought, of mys- 
ticism, theosophy and oriental cults. The 
sounder basis furnished by a knowledge of hu- 
man needs, has produced positivism, — the wor- 
ship of humanity ; ethical culture, — the fellow- 
ship of humanity; and socialism, — the organi- 
zation of humanity. 

[151] 



Tlie Religion of a Democrat 

August Comte's religion of humanity has 
not been a success, but his followers have been 
a noble band of humanitarians, enriching so- 
ciology and social reform. The worship of 
humanity has satisfied neither theist nor athe- 
ist, but it is a lofty conception, not without 
value to the race. More impersonal than an- 
cestor worship, more unselfish than the reli- 
gions of reincarnation, it has served to empha- 
size the worth and immortality of humanity, 
A religion founded on science, emphasizing 
the process of development, from the theolog- 
ical through the metaphysical to the positive, 
and devoted to the service of humanity, it is the 
very embodiment of non-theological ethics, 
evolution, and sociology. 

The founder of ethical culture would prob- 
ably not admit that fellowship is its goal, but 
he was the first to demand union for moral 
action, regardless of profession of faith. It 
is not expected that societies for ethical culture 
should undertake the organization of hu- 
manity, but they provide a meeting place for 
the lovers of their kind, whose actions and as- 

[152] 



Religion and the State 



pirations are guided by the moral ideal. The 
movement is numerically insignificant, but as 
a type of an indispensable fellowship of the 
democratic future, it is prophetic. If men 
and women of various traditions, differing 
gladly and profitably in their intellectual con- 
ceptions, but united by a moral purpose, can 
organize disinterestedly in the service of hu- 
manity, it can only strengthen fellowship as a 
basis of the common life. 

The organization of humanity can be ef- 
fected only by the state, which alone represents 
all human interests in any area. Every hu- 
man being, with his activities and hopes, is the 
concern of the state. No human being has a 
life which he can call his own, apart from the 
state. Hence the force which undertakes the 
organization of humanity must utilize the 
state. Socialism proposes to extend indefi- 
nitely the bounds of the democratic state. It 
is easy to think of state socialism as a merely 
political movement. As such it is unsatisfac- 
tory to orthodox socialists who find in collec- 
tivism an economic system and a materialistic 

[153] 



Tlie Religion of a Democrat 

philosophy. Whether viewed poHtically or 
economically, it must not be overlooked that a 
fervor of moral idealism pervades the move- 
ment; that however vain its dreams, it is the 
only contemporary organized effort to secure 
absolute justice for all; that its parish being 
the world, the state is simply the unit ; and that 
the international organization of the workers 
of the world, if it could be accomplished, 
would become shortly the organization of hu- 
manity. 

These three movements, so widely diifer- 
ent, are among the joint products of non-the- 
ological ethics, evolution and sociology. They 
are all extra-ecclesiastical, if not anti-theolog- 
ical. Their source is the imperfect organiza- 
tion of society, their motive powder the service 
of humanity. Positivism has had its day; 
ethical culture still illumines the way, but the 
future seems to belong to some form of social- 
ism. If the democratic state is at all to real- 
ize the dreams of sober collectivists, and to 
avoid the dangers pointed out by the honest 
critics of socialism, it will be by the organiza- 

[154] 



Religion and the State 



tion of its ethical forces, in harmony with its 
other elements. 

The service of democratic religion will be 
not merely to the individual, in allowing free 
expression to his growing demand for the ful- 
ness of life, but in permeating society with 
a loftier, yet more practicable, conception 
of the state and its elements. The idea will 
win its way that ''the city is the hope of democ- 
racy." ^ Municipal co-operation and social 
soKdarity are more promising than church fed- 
eration. National religion needs the self-gov- 
erning parish and the municipality, but not the 
denomination and the hierarchy. The social 
units, not too big to be comprehended by the 
people, will be organized for the progressive 
satisfaction of the wants of all in the spirit of 
democratic religion, until the common life of 
the coming century is a synthesis of human in- 
terests, and all good human work is aspiration. 
Ldborare est orare. 



1 Howe, " The City, the Hope of Democracy." Ferguson, 
"The News-Book" (Kansas City, July, 1907). 

[155] 



IMPERSONAL IMMORTALITY 



[157] 



CHAPTER VI 

IMPERSONAL IMMORTALITY 

AFTER leading from temperament and 
personality to the relation of religion 
to church and state, it may seem an 
anti-climax to revert to individual responsi- 
bility. However, the discussion of a greater 
social utility, to be achieved through the state, 
represents only the objective purpose of our 
inquiry. We shall not have completed our 
survey until we have deduced the subjective 
obligations of democratic religion, which may 
be considered under the term "impersonal im- 
mortality." Out of the greater possibilities 
of a more highly organized society, making 
available the fulness of life for its members, 
there comes naturally the obligation and in- 
spiration to the individual to lead for himself 

[159] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

this fuller life. Only the social state can 
make possible this complete life; thereby the 
individual learns the superiority of the com- 
mon life to any form of exclusiveness — both 
in actual living and as an inspirational force. 
The human mind demands an incarnation; 
it is the basic fact of most religions. Its moot 
familiar expression to the Occidental is in the 
Christian religion. The average mind re- 
quires its conception of the infinite or of in- 
finity to the incarnated in a human personality, 
which it can understand ; this is the strength of 
the religions which represent incarnation. It 
is not possible or necessary to get average peo- 
ple to perceive the niceties of theological and 
philosophical interpretation. Just because 
our minds work in diverse ways, the deeper 
thoughts must be stated in common, human 
terms. In trying to compass some of the 
depths and heights of democratic religion, it is 
idle to ignore this human need. It is logical 
that a personal religion should be expressed 
not only in personal experience, but through 
a personal conception. Much of the oriental- 

[160] 



Impersonal Immortality 



ism which is being exploited by the dissatis- 
fied philosophical minds of to-day is only a 
groping after something akin to Christian 
doctrine. 

The demand for an incarnation is found not 
only in our personal religious life, but in the 
time-honored attitude toward those who repre- 
sent some higher authority, expressed most fa- 
miliarly in the sentence, "The king can do no 
wrong." The king is the divine representa- 
tive, and those who can find little of divinity 
in the personality admit it in the person. 
Those of us who do not believe in the divine 
right of kings, or in divine authority at all, 
often render hero-worship to some great 
leader, which implies that he is virtually im- 
peccable. The multitude who accept unques- 
tioningly the divine authority of the Pope, or 
the German or Russian Emperor, are not more 
superstitious than those — and their name is 
legion — who have believed that Grover Cleve- 
land and William JMcKinley could do no 
wrong. These w^ere certainly very imperfect 
representatives of the incarnation of divinity; 

[1611 



The Religion of a Democrat 

but many of their followers have justified 
their every act. 

In a truer and more personal sense, we find 
in the ''loved one" an incarnation of all the 
virtues and graces. It is not necessary that 
he or she should really possess this character. 
There is an accumulation of virtue and grace 
which is quite comparable to the accumulation 
of myth about the ancient prophet or king. 
If one will make a personal examination for 
himself of his attitude toward the ''dearest 
person in the world," he will see that enough 
of the superstitions of the Hebrew, Christian 
and other religions which he may have re- 
jected, are re-expressed and incorporated in 
his own devotion, to satisfy him that incarna- 
tion is the expression of the average man's in- 
terpretation of perfection. 

The more human an incarnation is, the closer 
it comes to us; Jesus, the man, sometimes cre- 
ates an effect in the world beyond that made 
by Jesus, the God. While not underestimat- 
ing the latter influence, which has been power- 
ful, it must be recognized that some of the 

[162] 



Impersonal Immortaiity 



simpler and more vigorous forms of the 
Christian rehgion have laid great stress on the 
humanity of Jesus, while trying to retain the 
belief in his divinity. There are certainly few 
people who have any competent conception of 
that mysterious theological dogma of the third 
century, known as the Trinity. The average 
Trinitarian is a naive polytheist; the child, 
taught to believe in Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost, is a frank polytheist. He cannot com- 
prehend that unity which is the professed doc- 
trine of the Trinitarian theology. In the 
process of eliminating those doctrines, which 
do not bear the examination of twentieth cen- 
tury thought, we find a growing disbelief in 
Jesus the God, but we do not find any decline 
of reverence for Jesus the man. Most of us 
are not capable of abstract thought, and we 
may expect with certainty that the invariable 
culmination of the finest thought of this or any 
subsequent time will centre in the personality 
of some individual life. This is the expres- 
sion of Buddhism, the religion most similar to 
Christianity, and promises also to be the focus 

[163] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

of the humanitarian religion of many un- 
churched, who would otherwise have a religion 
too diffuse for actual use in daily life. 

This incorporation of the ideal in a person- 
ality accounts for the power of the belief in 
personal immortality. There is no need of 
saying anything critical about personal immor- 
tality. Those who do not find sufficient evi- 
dence for faith, cannot claim to know enough 
to disbelieve in it. An interpretation of im- 
personal immortality need not interfere with 
any individual's conception of personal im- 
mortality. There are some views, however, 
as we have found historically and still find, 
even among people who are theologically 
emancipated, which claim attention. One 
must have observed in his own faith or expe- 
rience that it is not uncommon to reject all 
the foundations of the historic religions, to 
lose belief in inspiration and revelation, and 
still grasp at a faith in personal immortality. 
It is natural to cling to a belief in a future 
world, peopled by personalities such as we 

[164] 



Impersonal Immortality 



know. The belief that goodness and spirit- 
uahty cannot die logically incorporates itself 
in the idea of the continuance of personality 
as we have seen it. 

It is a contradiction, that belief in personal 
immortality does not always enable one to face 
death. One might suppose that genuine be- 
lief in a future life, which is to be better than 
this, would reconcile people to death. Yet 
the devoutest believers in immortality, whose 
lives in this world are the best guarantee of 
happiness in the next, who believe that in any 
future life they would at least be better off than 
they are here, and who lustily sing, "Filled 
with delight, my raptured soul would here 
no longer stay," and other hj^mns expressive 
of their desire at once to leave this carnal 
world, still cling with a marvelous tenacity to 
this life. It might be supposed that if the 
earthly life is a test for the future, if we are 
on probation here, that this thought would be 
a determinant of our conduct. An unwaver- 
ing faith in a future life may still be held by 

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The Religion of a Democrat 

people whose conduct would indicate that they 
have no regard for what is going to happen 
to them hereafter. 

Our whole conception of the induction from 
this life to another is practically shaped for us 
by the dualism which has so long been part of 
the belief of humankind. When we think of 
the separation of the body and the soul, we are 
impressed with the infinite superiority of the 
soul, and we come to despise the body. This 
results in the paradox that, death being repug- 
nant, we dread especially the loss of the body 
of the one we have loved, — a loss which in the 
minds of many seems to be paramount to the 
loss of the spirit which inhabited the body. 
This is so human, so instinctive, so nearly in- 
evitable, as to be almost above criticism. A 
future age, which has a tradition of centuries 
of emancipation from the personal limitations 
of to-day, may perhaps free itself from this 
fear of death: but for us, death will continue 
to have its horrors, because the transition to 
anything different from this life seems so dif- 
ficult. Any future life of disembodied spirits 

[166] 



Impersonal Immortality 



seems irreconcilable to anything that we know. 
Although the rebellion of strong youth and 
middle age gives way to that reconciliation to 
translation which frequently comes with old 
age, it is hard to believe that death is life, that 
we can placidly go to sleep. 

This intense love of the body is doubtless 
due to the absorbing significance of personal 
contact. There is nothing for the lover, in the 
heavens above nor in the waters beneath the 
earth, like the touch of the beloved; there is 
nowhere else to be found such a thrill. It is 
not strange that we cannot face the loss of it, 
or that we cannot steel ourselves to that loss 
even when it has come. Personal contact, the 
spiritually minded must admit, produces at 
least one of the happiest sensations; yet it is 
physical. It may be founded on the most 
beautiful spiritual relationship; the touch of 
the hand of the loved one may express simply 
the culmination of the holiest of human satis- 
factions ; yet it is physical. It is the elevation 
of the physical, the justification of the phys- 
ical; it proves that the physical is not neces- 

[167] 



Tlie Religion of a Democrat 

sarily harmful, the fallacy of asceticism. 
That longing for the touch of a vanished hand 
is inevitable to a normal human being. 

There are two very significant observations 
to be made here: one is, that having lost that 
vanished person, or rather body, we cannot 
look forward with any assured knowledge to a 
reunion. In the religious teachings that have 
meant most to our time and people, those of 
the Christian scriptures, we find that in heaven 
* 'there is neither marriage nor giving in mar- 
riage." It is perfectly human to anticipate 
the resumption of the relations we have had 
here, although a moment's thought of the com- 
plications which would sometimes ensue com- 
pels the recognition of its impossibility. If 
there be such a future life as is portrayed, for 
example, in the New Testament, it must be in- 
finitely finer than the one we have known; if 
there are to be such relationships as we have 
enjoyed, they must be spiritually far beyond 
anything we can comprehend. 

In the second place, while we must not deal 
roughly with tender sentiments, it is not fair, 

[168] 



Impersonal Immortality 



still less religious, that the loss of a vanished 
hand should deprive the world of our services, 
affection and interest. It is not right that 
while we are still numbered among the living, 
we should spend most of our existence think- 
ing of the other world. There are not a few 
people who are simply waiting for the end; 
and if the end were oblivion, it were welcome 
as contrasted with staying here without the 
loved one or loved ones. Grief should culti- 
vate, not demand, sympathy. Not only those 
persons who have no satisfactory faith in per- 
sonal immortality, but also those who chng 
to the old ideas, have the obligation of striv- 
ing to make their own lives serviceable to hu- 
manity, which has use for all the affection 
squandered on the unseen world. 

There are happily other forms of physical 
exaltation in addition to the touch of the loved 
one. There is the entrancing exhilaration of 
nature, induced by sunrise on the mountain 
top, or the nearness of the stars on a clear 
night, or the expanse of the panorama on a 
clear day. Even on the street of the city, 

[169] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

when the breath of spring is felt for the first 
time and every sense tingles with delicious im- 
pressions, there is a tangible quality in the 
feeling, not unlike human touch. One's soul 
expands, he is intoxicated by his own heart 
beats, and feels himself strong to run any race 
life may set for him. 

Akin to this is the thrill of the crowd. It 
seems a far cry from the voice or the caress of 
the beloved to the impersonal roar or pressure 
of the crowd, but even so, our feelings may be 
swayed by the common impulse. It may be 
the exciting conclusion of a political campaign, 
or the frenzy of a critical moment at a foot- 
ball game, or a mass meeting in the interest of 
some great human problem, which gives one a 
thrill that for the time being makes one forget 
all personal or clannish relationships. Indi- 
vidual experience is momentarily submerged 
in the great unison of human hearts. Here is 
an intensity of human feeling, whether stirred 
by serious or trivial cause, which, though 
rarely experienced, does indicate the conse- 
quence of contact with humanity. 

[170] 



Impersonal Immortality 



For those persons who worship devoutly in 
unsulhed faith, there are times of uphft which 
transcend ordinary human satisfaction. Such 
exhilaration is experienced equally in the sub- 
tle appeals to the emotions by Ritualism, or the 
fanatical demonstrations of an evangelical re- 
vival, or the spontaneous soaring of the soul in 
a Quaker meeting. It is the weakness of ra- 
tionalistic and humanitarian religion that there 
is a dearth of such appeals to the senses. 

There are also occasions of peculiar ecstacy, 
due to the stimulation of the aesthetic sense. 
Standing before a great picture, a curtain may 
seem to lift, and the world is revealed as better 
and more beautiful than it appears to the 
mind's eye. Some fine, human story, or the 
artist's interpretation of one of nature's won- 
ders, may make us utterly forget ourselves. 
We are possessed by the experience for the 
time, as when one stands and looks over the 
edge of the Grand Canon. Since one may 
have these periods of exhilaration, which are 
more or less comparable to the human touch 
(the loss of which makes us feel that life is 

[171] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

not worth while) , surely not in another world, 
but in this one, is scope for personal satisfac- 
tion. Far more, there is the privilege of per- 
petuating the benediction of the former fel- 
lowship by allowing it to radiate through our 
other relationships here. 

As our horizon widens, we seem to become 
more and more insignificant. Yet when we 
understand the potentialities of human life 
and see how ramif jdng are the influences of a 
single individual, as well as the import of his 
constant contribution to racial experience, the 
individual act resumes its importance. The 
law of the conservation of energy rules the 
spiritual as well as the physical world. The 
physicist tells us that if one but touch a chair, 
he exercises a physical force that is felt 
through the whole world. Nothing is too in- 
significant for consideration in the physical 
laboratory. Measurements are made of the 
millionth part of an inch, and, by the use of 
rays of light, infinitesimal influences are re- 
corded. The supposed myth of our childhood, 
that a pebble thrown into the sea sends waves 

[172] 



Impersonal Immortality 



to the opposite shore, is verified. Such is the 
influence of the individual act in the spiritual 
world, v/hich gives the meaning to impersonal 
immortality. In a perfectly real and intellig- 
ible sense the most trivial act is of infinite im- 
portance. 

One Saturday night I was sitting in one of 
the big clubs of Philadelphia, at an hour when 
the important men of the city are accustomed 
to gather there. They were strong men, with 
strong faces, but, to be frank, there were not 
many fine faces, not many handsome faces; 
neither were there, apparently, many happy 
faces. Even when they smiled they did not 
always seem happy. The character written in 
their faces was rather that of the lines of 
strenuous accomplishment than beautiful aspi- 
ration. But they were big men, who were do- 
ing big things, in one of the world's great 
centres of industry. Yet, looking at some of 
those grizzled beards and hoary heads, there 
came the thought of a white-headed patriarch, 
who might not have been a welcome guest in 
that club, — who was not known widely while 

[173] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

he lived, — and whose home was in Philadel- 
phia's despised suburb, Camden. Will the 
collective influence of all these men a hundred 
years hence be comparable to the pervasive 
force of that good, old, gray poet of Camden? 
When we come to understand religion and de- 
mocracy and life, may we not discover that 
Walt Whitman means more for humanity than 
many captains of industry? Insignificant as 
may seem the individual, he may have an in- 
fluence which will work itself out in the ages 
which follow. There is a wonderful inspira- 
tion in the simplicity of the agencies which 
have produced great consequences in a com- 
plex world. 

Impersonal immortality is the perpetuation 
of oneself through the individuals, the insti- 
tutions, and the ideals of the years to come. 
To ask why one obscure person should be con- 
cerned about the remote possibility that his in- 
fluence will be momentous, is to ask why one 
should work, or be virtuous, or neighborly, or 
plan for the future of one's family, or concern 
oneself about any of those obligations which 

[174] 



Impersonal Immortality 



the highest morahty teaches us are more im- 
portant than one's convenience, or, at times, 
one's hfe. Impersonal immortality furnishes 
a motive power more unselfish and more in- 
spiring than any system of eternal rewards and 
punishments. It provides for no death-bed 
repentance, but it makes the conception pos- 
sible that one may overcome evil with good. 
It enlarges the boundaries of the spiritual life, 
until the personal satisfaction of all human 
wants becomes both legitimate and insistent. 
The attainment of the fulness of life by the 
individual here and now is the best promise of 
its wider enjoyment by a coming generation. 
The service of the common life, here and 
hereafter, is measured in terms of the human 
wants, — wealth, health, sociabihty, taste, 
knowledge, righteousness, — by which the value 
of church and state has been tested. The first 
obligation of the individual Vvdiich has not only 
imperative and immediate, but eternal conse- 
quences, is to do his work w^ell wherever he finds 
himself. It is not to be impUed that he is to 
remain where he cannot do his work well, in 

[1T5] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

obedience to the ancient sentiment that he is to 
be content where God has put him. If, after 
earnest consideration, the work proves to be 
uncongenial, it is bhnd fate not divinity, which 
is shaping his destiny. The obhgation to find 
the work which one can do best is as great as 
that of doing one's work worthily when one 
has found it. The personal enjoyment is re- 
munerative, but the greater motive is the jus- 
tification of his place in the world. 

When the significance of work is appreci- 
ated, it will throw light on the importance of 
the satisfaction of the other wants. Doing 
work well will not merely set a good example 
to one's coworkers, or one's servants, or one's 
employers, or guarantee the maximum joy to 
be got out of life, but establish a precedent. 
The accumulated precedents of average peo- 
ple make a well nigh irresistible tradition. 
Each piece of bad work encourages another, 
as bad or worse; each piece of good work is 
promise of continuance or improvement. We 
are known as individuals to be creatures of 
habit, but collective habits are just as imperi- 

[176] 



Impersonal Immortality 



ous, and in the shaping of these, the influence 
of no individual is negligible. 

Any one who does a portion of the world's 
work properly, in the service of his patrons, is 
contributing an influence of value, even if his 
own motive is no better than profit-making; 
but the added significance of the feeling of re- 
sponsibility is illustrated by a contrast which 
will interpret the meaning of all democratic 
religion. One of the great department stores 
of Boston has a peculiarly democratic organi- 
zation; the relations between employers, — as 
they are conventionally called, — and em- 
ployes, — who are in this case exceptionally in- 
dependent, — being those of intimacy and mu- 
tual understanding. At one of the monthly 
dinners of the Employes' Association, the 
president of the corporation made an address 
which might not be generally understood by 
employers and employes of these days. The 
meaning of his evidently sincere words was 
that he felt that his hf e and his business should 
be so directed that everybody connected with 
that establishment should share in it. He 

[177] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

felt called upon to organize that business on 
the basis of democracy, and he said that the 
heads of this great department store had 
planned that day for the future of the busi- 
ness, after their personalities had been elim- 
inated. All knew his feeling, that the func- 
tion of employers and employed was co-oper- 
ative; but his desire was not merely to 
develop a co-operative institution, but that this 
establishment might become an example for 
all other industries to reorganize on the basis 
of democracy. He may not be able to in- 
spire his employes with his faith in democracy ; 
his organization may not be the final type of 
a democracy; but there is a vision of the dem- 
ocratic future, which cannot be without per- 
manent enlightenment, in this gift of a man's 
talent and dreams to the impersonal industry 
of the future. 

This episode, coming immediately after 
publicity had been given the will of the prince 
of department store builders, the contrast is 
marked. The greatest department store in 
the world, in size and service, was organized in 

[178] 



Impersonal Immortality 



Chicago by a mercantile genius. He did his 
work well; he made his store beautiful and 
serviceable to the customer, and so attractive 
to the employes that they are reported to have 
taken part of their remuneration in the satis- 
faction of working there. By his extraordi- 
nary ability, this captain of industry amassed 
a fortune of over a hundred millions of dol- 
lars, a sum so vast that, in terms of life, it was 
meaningless even to its possessor. When he 
died, he left that fortune entailed, so that his 
will continues to control it for at least fifty 
years, determining the lives of his employes 
and his family arbitrarily, under conditions 
which he had no power to anticipate. That 
great, autocratic, industrial genius is going to 
remain in personal control of the lives of thou- 
sands of people for at least fifty years after 
death. 

Can one avoid contrasting the mission and 
ambition of these two men? One of them felt 
— though not necessarily in the old, theological 
sense, — that he had an immortal soul, and that 
he was going to save it by letting it live on in 

[179] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

a great multitude of people for years to come : 
the other felt that he must continue to hold 
tight his own influence, without regard to the 
personalities this might dominate. The idea 
of personal inmiortality of the latter was lim- 
ited by material and perishable things ; the con- 
ception of impersonal immortality of the for- 
mer has infinite spiritual possibilities. 

Similar potentialities lie before us in the 
satisfaction of the physical wants. Some- 
where between sensualism and asceticism maj^ 
be found a norm of physical satisfaction, 
which has both individual and social value. 
As Paul says, "Whether, therefore, ye eat or 
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory 
of God." Physical satisfactions are impera- 
tive; but they range from the reproduction of 
the species to bestial intemperance. The body 
is sacred, worthy of admiration and enjoy- 
ment, but it is subject to abuse; instead of be- 
ing ignored by the spiritually aspiring, it must 
be accorded the finest valuation. 

For the purpose of immortality, the most 
immediate function of the body is reproduc- 

[180] 



Impersonal Immortality 



tion, which will furnish the surest way of per- 
petuating ourselves; but we cannot all have 
children, and this is not the only avenue to 
physical immortality. We have not yet done 
justice to the meaning of physical heredity; 
but a still more unexplored field is spirit- 
ual heredity. We are the products of envir- 
onment, while we make environment. Every 
physical act has its consequence, as has every 
economic or social act, in determining collec- 
tive habits. If we are intemperate, and our 
sensualism takes the form of drunkeness or 
gluttony, it allies our acts with the influence 
of all other sensualists, and coupled with the 
frequent reaction from asceticism, will tend 
to undermine all standards of temperance. 
In the phj^sical world, as in the artistic, the 
rational division is that made by John Ruskin : 
into purists, who select only the good; sen- 
sualists, who select only the evil; and natural- 
ists, who see life as it is. 

The satisfaction of the social want brings 
us more immediately to our obligations to our 
fellow men. This, at least, receives strong 

[181] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

consideration from all orthodox religious 
teachers. The vast amount of attention given 
to petty, human responsibilities would not 
seem extravagant, if only equal zeal were ex- 
hibited in the removal of those fundamental 
causes of conflict among men, which make the 
social relations difficult. It is true that con- 
sideration for others frequently negatives it- 
self into conventionality that is hypocritical 
and distasteful ; but there is virtue in the most 
assiduous cultivation of the lubricant of cour- 
tesy, which enables the great social wheels to 
revolve without friction. Sympathy and re- 
spect are needed in the household, in society, 
on the street-car, in public places, and the ex- 
pression of them will be multiplied as the ap- 
preciation of the common life grows. What 
a commentary on our contemporary civiliza- 
tion is the daily chapter of little discourtesies, 
largely due to the close focus which obscures 
the infinite consequences of trivial acts! 

While some people have difficulty in the 
kindly treatment of those they love most, there 
are others whose temperaments and philosophy 

[182] 



Impersonal Immortality 



of life, facilitate a spontaneous hobnobbing 
with humanity. One of the most lovable per- 
sonahties developed in American life was 
Mayor Samuel M, Jones of Toledo, beloved 
by nearly everybody in that city, and by all 
who really knew him, A casual remark once 
brought from a young man in a remote citj^ 
the narrative of a simple incident in which 
Mayor Jones was the unconscious hero. A 
group of college students were returning home 
on the train for their vacation, and were hav- 
ing the hilarious time that sudden relaxation 
provokes. Mayor Jones, in passing through 
the car, was attracted by their youthful en- 
thusiasm and spent several hours visiting with 
them and giving the benediction of his 
sprightly and sunny conversation. Only by 
chance at leaving did they discover his identity, 
but they learned that he never lost an oppor- 
tunity to commune with people who were 
thoroughly alive, regardless of locality. JNIore 
important, he left on them an impress that 
will never be forgotten. He had radiated the 
influence of his benignant humanity, which the 

[183] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

4 

great souls of the world may communicate to 
the crowd, as to those in intimate fellowship. 
Such characters are found not only among 
men in public life, but in women of domestic 
inclinations. Such a one was Mrs. Henry D. 
Lloyd, of whom a friend said, in seeing her 
go down the street; — "There goes Jessie 
Bross Lloyd, — trailing the beatitudes!" It 
may be said that such a character is born, not 
made, but one cannot tell in what environment 
it may thrive, nor how far it may be cultivated. 
When in search of an example of how an 
unknown person can leave his mark upon the 
world, one should read the life of Francis 
Place, by Graham Wallas of London. Fran- 
cis Place was a tailor who lived in the first half 
of the last century. He was reared in a sweat- 
shop, and for years endured degrading pov- 
erty; but he had a dissatisfied mind which, re- 
belling against the lot of the working man, led 
him to resolve to make money as the first con- 
dition of a larger life. He succeeded beyond 
any reasonable expectations, and having ac- 
quired a comfortable fortune, deliberately re- 

[184] 



Impersonal Immortality 



tired from business, to devote himself to pub- 
lic life. As a political radical, trained in the 
atmosphere of the '20s, and incited by his rap- 
idly acquired competence, he threw himself 
into the agitation for the extension of the 
suffrage. 

With the Reform Bill of 1832 there are as- 
sociated many distinguished names; but these 
are the figure-heads of a political revolution 
directed from the humble home of the retired 
tailor. If the franchise has been twice ex- 
tended since then, until, with the demand for 
woman's suffrage, it promises to become uni- 
versal; if the British city is more democratic 
than the American, and does its work better 
in spite of the aristocratic crust at the top ; if 
there is a better labor representation in Parlia- 
ment than in the American Congress, it is dif- 
ficult to overestimate the credit which is due 
to this almost unknown tailor. Nine out of 
ten of the readers of these lines may never 
have heard of Francis Place, yet he was not 
only one of the prophets, but one of the great 
statesmen of modern democracy. The believ- 

[185] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

ers in democratic religion owe a debt of grati- 
tude to Graham Wallas for having unearthed 
his manuscript memoirs in the British Mu- 
seum. 

One must not overlook the cosmic instinct 
of this simple tailor. He saw that the great- 
est need of his time was the perfection of the 
organization of the state. The highest con- 
ception which can be a practical guide to the 
individual who would be of service to human- 
kind, is that which sees the intrinsic value in 
united effort. The co-working of citizens is 
humanity's triumph over the anarchy of the 
jungle. Loyal citizenship is the truest serv- 
ice, for society is vested with an immortality; 
which cannot be ascribed to the individual. 

A commercial and scientific age is naturally 
unfriendly to art. Taste is a quality we are 
inclined to attribute to the people who are for- 
tunate enough to be insensible to the material- 
izing and vulgarizing incubus of modern in- 
dustrialism. The profitableness of the ugly 
has not only resulted in the defacement of the 
world;, but has produced a philosophy in which 

[186] 



Impersonal Immortality 



beauty is regarded as a luxury. The demand 
for the enjoyment of the fulness of life will 
involve the revolt against these conditions. 
The hard, insensitive, industrial mind will have 
to yield to the surviving, emotional sensitive 
temperaments, until the latter can voice the 
cramped desires of the multitude, who yield 
to-day to what they regard as an inexorable 
materialism. One may have a large intellec- 
tual conception of life, and still be less alert 
than a savage to beautiful things. One may 
live in a slum under grinding poverty, and still 
have longings for the beautiful. It is foolish 
to ask people who live in squalor to rejoice in 
the songs of the birds which make the air of 
the country resonant, or to long for the moun- 
tainside which suggests to them only loneli- 
ness. Yet this is a sphere instinct with the 
sensuous, and progress toward the good and 
true will be impeded until our senses are at- 
tuned to hear and see the beautiful. For 
harmony in the industrial world, there can be 
no better aid than the cultivation of taste, 
which will make the consumer responsive to the 

[187] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

more beautiful and better things, insisting at 
the same time on a superior environment for 
the worker. 

The satisfaction of the intellectual want 
may be illusory, because it is often regarded 
as the one sure expression of impersonal im- 
mortality. The great primitive literatures 
were preserved without writing; thought is 
transmitted through the generations. For the 
individual, there is the same insidious tempta- 
tion to over-indulgence in this as in any of the 
other wants. There is the possibility that he 
will become so satisfied with self -culture that 
he will not appreciate his own need of other 
things, or others' mind-hunger. Not all in- 
tellectual ambitions are guided by Matthew 
Arnold's conception of culture: "The great 
men of culture are those who have had a pas- 
sion for diffusing, for making prevail, for 
carrjdng from one end of society to the other, 
the best knowledge, the best ideas of their 
time; who have labored to divest knowledge 
of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, ab- 
stract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it, 

[188] 



Impersonal Immortality 



to make it efficient outside the clique of the 
cultivated and learned, yet remaining the best 
knowledge and thought of the time, and a 
true source, therefore, of sweetness and light." 

The satisfaction of the moral, like the intel- 
lectual want, is in danger of being taken for 
granted. This calamity is minimized by a 
proper recognition of the moral quality of the 
fulness of life involved in the satisfaction of 
the other human wants. One may need to be 
reminded, however, that in additon to the 
wider expression of sympathy and love, there is 
indispensable a conception of justice. As Mr. 
R. T. Crane, the great manufacturer, said in 
an address in Chicago, ''It is desirable even for 
policy's sake to be honest ; but even when hon- 
esty is a disinterested motive, it is still better 
to be fair." Sympathy and love are misdi- 
rected unless guided by justice. 

The enlargement of the horizon by the at- 
tempt to attain the fulness of life gives one a 
vision of the universal which, in the best sense, 
is religious. It will, it is true, also raise the 
moral standard, but that will better enable one 

[189] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

M i 

to see how many big souls there are in humble 
places. Accessions of knowledge, or even of 
virtue, may produce a kind of vanity, but en- 
tering into the fulness of life will bring mod- 
esty, tolerance and respect. Barrett Wendell 
says that the doctrine of election is democratic 
because one never know^s who may be among 
the elect. This may not be good theology, but 
it is good sociology. One cannot afford to be 
intolerant or disrespectful, for the possessor 
of some exceptionally objectionable character- 
istic may have some other qualities which com- 
mand our profoundest respect. 

Democratic religion will eliminate prejudice. 
The prejudice of class-consciousness cannot 
bear to have the light of investigation thrown 
on the basis of social justice. Sex prejudice 
cannot survive the revelations which come from 
the experience of the richer life, founded on 
the complementary relationship of the sexes. 
Race prejudice weakens with the discovery of 
the peculiar but misunderstood excellences of 
other races. The wonted boastfulness of the 
white man, born of his new and vigorous west- 

[190] 



Impersonal Immortality 



ern civilization, may be subdued as he comes to 
appreciate the enduring civihzation of the yel- 
low man ; or he may grow indulgent toward the 
immaturity of the negro, in contrast with the 
premature degeneracy of some members of his 
own race. Theological prejudices must van- 
ish if religion is measured in terms of life, and 
the life eternal is seen to be determined by 
deeds, rather than words. 

There is a wonderful statement in the book 
of Job which has been much abused by the 
theologians: — ''I know that my Redeemer liv- 
eth." Christian theology perpetuated the 
statement and made it prophetic; but the He- 
brews themselves had an interpretation more 
probable and equally profound, which is found 
in the Second Isaiah, the central theme of 
which is, "My Redeemer is the people." The 
people are to redeem themselves. Our ashes 
fertilize the soil from which life springs, but 
souls also kindle souls. I do not know when 
my Redeemer will live, or whose Redeemer I 
may be, except in the sense in which every man 
is our Redeemer and we are his Redeemer. 

[191] 



The Religion of a Democrat 

Some there are who are redeemed by touching 
the hfe of an individual; some there are who 
are redeemed by entering into the hfe of hu- 
manity. The redemption of the people will 
be by means of impersonal immortality, — the 
crux of democratic religion. 



[192] 



THE ART OF LIFE SERIES 

EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS, Editor 
VOLUMES READY: 

The Use of the Margin 

By EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS 

In this work the author's charm as a public speaker is trans- 
ferred to the printed page. His theme is the problem of utilizing 
the time one has to spend as one pleases for the aim of attaining 
the highest culture of mind and spirit. How to work and how to 
play ; how to read and how to study, how to avoid intellectual 
dissipation and how to apply the open secrets of great achieve- 
ment evidenced in conspicuous lives are among the many phases 
of the problem which the author discusses, earnestly, yet with a 
light touch and not without humor. Thousands of his admirers 
have welcomed this concrete and practical presentation of one 
aspect of Mr. Gri^^s's philosophy of life. 

Things Worth While 

By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON 

The author's life-long activity, his wide acquaintance with the 
great men of the best period in American literature, and his 
broad, general experience fit him almost more than any other man 
of the day to expound the things that are worth while. 

He discusses in an intimate, conversational manner various 
problems of thinking and living and has entered fully into the 
spirit animating the publication of The Art of Life Series. 

The book is one to be much quoted and which the reader will 
welcome as an appropriate gift to those who have had a wide 
vision of life and to those who are preparing to enter upon it. 

Where Knowledge Fails 

By EARL BARNES 

From the pen of a scientific thinker, one whose attitude is 
liberal yet reverent, presenting the outlines of a belief in which the 
relations of knowledge and faith are clearly established. While 
his platform is certain to be seriously challenged, it is nevertheless 
true that many will find in it a solution of the most important 
problem present-day men and women have to cope with. 
OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION 
Cloth. 12mo. Each, 50 cents net. By Mail, 55 cents 

To be had at all Bookstores, or of 

B. W, HUEBSCH .. Publisher .. NEW YORK 



BOOKS BY EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS 
Moral Education 

A discussion of the whole problem of moral education : its aim 
in relation to our society and all the means through which that 
aim can be attained. Contains complete bibliography with an- 
notations and index. This book has been adopted as a text in 
normal schools and colleges and for study by clubs and reading 
circles. 

Cloth. 12mo. $1.60 net. Pottage, 12 cents 

" It is easily the best book of its kind yet written in America."— 7"^^ Literary 
Digest. 

"Edward Howard Griggs has written a notable book on ' Moral Educa- 
tion/ easily the most profound, searching and practical that has been written in 
this country, and which, from the same qualities, will not be easily displaced in its 
primacy."— The Cleveland Leader, 

" The book is a notable one, wholesome 2Xi^XQ.z.6ai(AQ.y —Educational Review, 

The New Humanism 

Studies in Personal and Social Development 

Ten closely integrated essays interpreting the modern spirit 
and developing the ideals of the new ethical and social humanism 
which occupies in our time the place held by the aesthetic and 
intellectual humanism in the earlier Renaissance. 

Cloth. 12mo, gilt top. $1.50 net. Postage, 10 cents 

" The book is full of clear, wise, well-balanced, original thought, and is the 
natural and artistic expression of a man whose life has been enriched by deep ex- 
perience and wide study. It advocates a brave and cheerful facing of life's great 
personal problems; it recognizes the severity of the struggles toward the best, but 
it also recognizes the infinite power of the human spirit to rise to greater and 
greater heignts."— ^^^>^ News. 

A Book of Meditations 

A volume of Personal Reflections, Sketches, and Poems deal- 
ing with Life and Art ; an Autobiography, not of Events and Ac- 
cidents, but of Thoughts and Impressions. Frontispiece portrait 
by Albert Sterner. 

Cloth. 12mo, gilt top. $1.50 net. Postage, 10 cents 

" Strongly optimistic, and yet in a full realization of the blunders and faults of 
art and the social system, the meditations of Mr. Griggs are at once stimulating 
and tonic to the reader. Devoid of pedantry and seldom didactic, sound in 
truthful estimates, and founded upon a wholesome love of life, the little book is 
infectiously engaging."— C//fV^^^ Tribune. 

The Use of the Margin 

(See Advertisement of The Art of Life Series) 
To he had at all Bookstores, or of 

B. W. HUEBSCH .. Publisher .. NEW YORK 



TWO NOTEWORTHY BOOKS 

In Peril of Change 

Essays Written in Time of Tranquillity. 

By C. F. a MASTERMAN 

12mo. $1.50 net. Postage, 12 cents 

A trenchant survey of present-day Anglo-Saxon civilization, 
illuminating the forces making for radical change. The work 
includes brilliant criticisms of men and books, an examination of 
the newer tendencies in thought, studies of contemporary societ}^ 
and current religious influences. The writer's reaction on social, 
political and literary questions is so clearly and forcefully expressed 
as to compel attention at a time when old-fashioned institutions 
are subjected to searching investigation. 

" Every minister, every student of the kingdom of God may profit by 
reading the longest essay, The Religion of the City, a description not 
on\y of London, but of any great city. It is the voice of a new Jere- 
miah earnestly, seriously warning us of our sins, yet not hopelessly . . . 
The volume is sociological, biographical, religious, prophetic. . . . 
It is stimulating reading, well worth while." — The Congregationalist, 

" Incisively and suggestively written by a man who feels that great 
changes are impending, and, while not unaware of the perils involved 
in them, looks forward 's\4th hope to the new order of things which will 
ultimately be established. . . . The tone of the book is serious but hopeful, 
and the essays are well worth careful reading.*' — Hamilton W. Mabie, 

Seventy Years Young, 

or. The Unhabitual Way 

By EMILY M. BISHOP 

Board Sides, Cloth Back. 12mo. $1.20 net. Postage, 7 cents 

Advocating ever-new expression in thought and deed, the 
avoidance of ruts in thinking and feeling, and preaching healthy 
optimism, the book is one which will keep body and mind young. 

It is to be read and re-read and will help solve the daily prob- 
lems which perplex and age. It says what you would like to say 
and ought to say to your best friend, and what your best friend 
would like to say and ought to say to you. 

Dr. G. StAx\ley Hall says : " I read it through with interest and 
great pleasure. It is timely and practical." 

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fulness and has a stimulating message for the young and the mature.*' 

"A very suggestive, thought-provoking volume, written especially 
for those who are settling down in life and who are infected with the 
personal-history disease, also for those who are supersensitive and 
always being misunderstood." — Review of Reviews. 

To he had at all Bookstores, or of 

B. W. HUEBSCH .. Publisher .. NEW YORK 









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